APRIL 28th - Mutiny on the Bounty--Take a Look, It's in a Book



On this day in 1789, there was mutiny in the air. It was the day that Fletcher Christian and 25 other petty officers aboard the HMS Bounty got fed up with Captain William Bligh and set him and those loyal to him adrift in a small boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean. Stories have three sides--yours, mine, and the truth. And the truth is usually unknown. In this case I’d be willing to bet that all sides are fascinating. By most accounts Bligh was an overbearing critical asshat who condescended to his men constantly--basically he was the Bud Kilmer of sailing. Bligh was the victim of three mutinies in his career. I mean after the second time you realize your men hate you enough to commit treason, you probably need to rethink how you do things. Of course some of this may have a bit to do with the fact that Bligh was an excellent sailor. So much so that he was able to navigate that small boat to safe harbor instead of succumb to the death sentence it looked like. But you have to be a pretty big dick to have mutiny happen to you three times. I’m not exactly siding with Christian and the men though. Sounds like they just wanted to stay in Tahiti and live like kings instead of doing the job they were assigned to do--bring breadfruit back from Tahiti. Not that I blame them. Kind of the problem that Brando ran into filming the movie in 1962. Not so for Gibson in '84. He didn't go crazy till many years later. Don't know about the Laughton/Gable '35 version. The actual Fletcher Christian and the mutineers bebopped around islands trying to find a home, stopping in Tahiti to pick up some plants, more men, and some females, before finally settling on Pitcairn Island. They were not discovered until 1808, with John Adams being the only mutineer that had survived. You can read about all of this in “The Bounty Trilogy” three novels of the events by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. They’re novels, as in not 100% factual, but as I said before the truth is usually unknown. Plus reading is like good for your brain and stuff.

This day has been Marked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AUGUST 22nd - Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
Read more

AUGUST 23rd - History of the One-Way

Image
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
Read more

OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye

On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
Read more