"Since the First World War Americans have been leading a double life, and our history has moved on two rivers, one visible, the other underground; there has been the history of politics which is concrete, factual, practical and unbelievably dull; and there is a subterranean river of untapped, ferocious, lonely and romantic desires, that concentration of ecstasy and violence which is the dream life of the nation."

Norman Mailer
"The whole work of healing Tellus depends on nursing that little spark, on incarnating that ghost, which is still alive in every people, and different in each. When Logres really dominates Britain, when the goddess Reason, the divine clearness, is really enthroned in France, when the order of Heaven is really followed in China--why then it will be spring."

"This new history of yours," said McPhee, "is a wee bit lacking in documents."

C.S. Lewis

Synchronicities this week

  • June 24 Midsummer/St. John’s Day
  • June 24, 1947 The first flying saucers are sighted over Mount Rainier by pilot Ken Arnold.
  • June 24, 1542 St. John of the Cross, Spanish Carmelite mystic and poet, is born.
  • June 24, 1938 500 ton meteorite lands near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.
  • June 24, 1717 First Free Masons' grand lodge founded in London.
  • June 24, 1374 A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.
  • June 24, 1314 Battle of Bannockburn; Scotland regains independence from England.
  • June 24, 843 Vikings destroy Nantes.
  • June 23 Midsummer’s Eve
  • June 23, 1972 Nixon & Haldeman agree to use CIA to cover up Watergate.
  • June 23, 1942 Germany's latest fighter, a Focke-Wulf FW190 is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales.
  • June 23, 1888 Frederick Douglass is 1st African-American nominated for president.
  • June 23, 1848 Workers’ insurrection in Paris.
  • June 23, 1713 The French residents of Acadia are given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia, Canada. They choose the latter, migrate to Louisiana, and become Cajuns.
  • June 21 Summer Solstice (11:28 a.m.).
  • June 21, 1964 Three civil rights workers-Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James E. Chaney-are kidnapped and murdered by the Klan in Mississippi .
  • June 21, 1948 The 33 1/3 RPM LP record is introduced by Columbia Records.
  • June 21, 1944 Ray Davies of the Kinks born in London.
  • June 21, 1916 Mexican troops beat US expeditionary force under Gen Pershing.
  • June 21, 1877 The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrant labor activists, are hanged in Pennsylvania prisons.
  • June 20, 1947 Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, gangster, the “man who invented Las Vegas,” shot dead in Beverly Hills, Cal.
  • June 20, 1909 Errol Flynn, greatest of the swashbucklers, born in Hobart, Tasmania.
  • June 20, 1944 Congress charters Central Intelligence Agency.
  • June 20, 1943 Detroit race riot kills 35.
  • June 20, 1893 - Lizzie Borden acquitted in murder of parents in New Bedford Mass.
  • June 20, 1871 Ku Klux Klan trials began in federal court in Oxford Miss.
  • June 20, 1837 Queen Victoria at 18 ascends British throne ; rules for 63 years ending in 1901.
  • June 20, 1756 146 British soldiers imprisoned in the "Black Hole of Calcutta." Most die.
  • June 20, 1631 The Irish village of Baltimore is attacked by Algerian pirates.
  • June 20, 1214 The University of Oxford receives its charter.
  • June 20, 451 Germans & Romans beat Attila the Hun at Catalarinische Fields.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

This week in the Secret History: Wales for the Welsh!

The blood-red dragon of Wales, Owain Glyndwr's battle flag


Owain Glyndwr, b. May 28, 1354

"'Tis the sound of Saxon foemen, Saxon spearmen, Saxon bowmen..."

Most people have heard something about Ireland's long struggle for independence from Great Britain. Thanks to Mel Gibson, many people know something about William Wallace and Scotland's fight to be free of English rule. But outside of Wales, not that many have heard of Owain Glyndwr, perhaps the most dramatic story of all, the heir to King Arthur, whose death is stilll shrouded in mystery.

Welsh prince Owain Glyndwr led a successful people’s rebellion against England’s iron-fisted rule in the early 15th century and arguably became the most famous and highly regarded figure in Welsh history.

Burdened with onerous taxation and restrictive land policies, the Welsh people chafed under English domination. Welsh myths and legends foretold a national redeemer, and the Welsh prayed for a man who would rise up against England and restore Welsh independence, a new pendragon, or head dragon, as King Arthur had been. From out of these rumblings of discontent, Owain Glyndwr emerged. Despite England’s massive military strength at the beginning of the 15th century, the Welsh, under the charismatic leadership of Glyndwr, drove the English from their land and enjoyed a hard-earned–albeit brief–independence.

The English, after having subdued Scotland, turned their full might against Wales. Many of Glyndwr's most loyal supporters died in 1410 in a battle in Shropshire. After a series of such reverses, from the sanctuary of the Welsh mountains, Glyndwr and his band of warriors employed guerrilla tactics to unsettle the English. In 1413 Prince Henry (Prince Hal of Shakespearian fame) took the throne, ruling as Henry V, and offered Glyndwr and his supporters a pardon if they would submit. Twice they refused. Glyndwr, his cause lost, vanished from history without a trace, becoming the most potent symbol of Welsh independence.

To find out where Welsh nationalism is today, read The Welsh Patriot, a blog devoted to the "Alternative Nationalist Movement and Struggle."
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