jgo
jgo's JournalOn This Day: "Tyranny from the bench"- SC sides with judge who ordered forced sterilization - Mar. 28, 1978
(edited from article)
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"A SORDID CASE”: STUMP V. SPARKMAN, JUDICIAL IMMUNITY,
AND THE OTHER SIDE OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
LAURA T. KESSLER
Maryland Law Review
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This Article presents a new historical account of Stump v. Sparkman, one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions in the past fifty years. Stump is the 1978 judicial immunity opinion in which the Supreme Court declared that judges are absolutely immune from liability for their official judicial acts, even if such acts are done maliciously or flawed by the commission of grave procedural errors. The context of the case was horrific. It involved the involuntary sterilization of a fifteen-year-old girl; she was sterilized pursuant to a court order that her mother had obtained from a state judge without any notice to the child, appointment of a lawyer to represent her, presentation of evidence, or opportunity to appeal. As an adult she sued the judge and lost on the basis of the judicial immunity doctrine
...
Sparkman appealed to the Seventh Circuit, which unanimously reversed on the immunity question. Although the court acknowledged Bradley and Pierson as relevant authority, it found the facts of Sparkman’s case to lie outside the boundaries of the judicial immunity doctrine as defined by those precedents. “Judicial immunity,” the court said, “is available . . . only where the judge has jurisdiction.” Judge Stump’s action did not meet this requirement, according to the court. Indiana statutes in existence at the time permitted sterilizations, but only of institutionalized persons and only if certain procedures were followed. These procedures included the right to notice, the opportunity to defend, and the right to appeal. According to the Seventh Circuit, this statutory scheme “negat[ed]” subject matter jurisdiction; there was simply no statutory authority for Judge Stump’s actions. Nor did the common law, according to the court, provide any jurisdictional basis for Judge Stump’s order. In sum, the Seventh Circuit found no express basis in statutory or common law for a court to order the sterilization of a
minor child simply upon a parent’s petition. To give judges immunity in such cases, Judge Swygert wrote, “would be sanctioning tyranny from the bench.”
Judge Stump and his co-defendants appealed to the Supreme Court. The law clerk assigned to review Stump’s petition for certiorari recommended against hearing the case, because he thought there would be “institutional costs.” As he explained:
This is a sordid case. If this Court grants review the case will
attract even wider attention and publicity than it has already
received—all for the wrong reasons.
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https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=057096091031106009079096109026023072027012061042040087126089114023083014117001097070010012060033019023016099123114120065070073006005047059076011110095064027023106001045023083067086024065064069004114021097079074007120001019098081005004069024067017103&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Stump v. Sparkman
Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978), is the leading United States Supreme Court decision on judicial immunity. It involved an Indiana judge who was sued by a young woman who had been sterilized without her knowledge as a minor in accordance with the judge's order. The Supreme Court held that the judge was immune from being sued for issuing the order because it was issued as a judicial function. The case has been called one of the most controversial in recent Supreme Court history.
Facts
In 1971, Judge Harold D. Stump granted a mother's petition to have a tubal ligation performed on her 15-year-old daughter, who the mother alleged was "somewhat retarded". The petition was granted the same day that it was filed. The judge did not hold a hearing to receive evidence or appoint a lawyer to protect the daughter's interests. The daughter underwent the surgery a week later, having been told that she was to have her appendix removed.
The daughter married two years later. Failing to become pregnant, she learned that she had been sterilized during the 1971 operation. The daughter and her husband sued the judge and others associated with the sterilization in federal district court.
The district court found that the judge was immune from suit. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, holding that the judge had lost his immunity because he failed to observe "elementary principles of due process" when he ordered the sterilization. Finally, in 1978, [on March 28,] the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, reversed the Court of Appeals, announcing a test for deciding when judicial immunity should apply and holding that the judge could not be sued.
The holding
Addressing Judge Swygert's assertion that even if Judge Stump had jurisdiction he was deprived of immunity because of his failure to observe elementary principles of procedural due process, Justice White countered:
A judge is absolutely immune from liability for his judicial acts even if his exercise of authority is flawed by the commission of grave procedural errors.
["a loose cannon"]
Associate Justice Potter Stewart entered a vigorous dissent. Agreeing that judges of general jurisdiction enjoy absolute immunity for their judicial acts, he wrote, "...what Judge Stump did...was beyond the pale of anything that could sensibly be called a judicial act." Stating that it was "factually untrue" that what Judge Stump did was an act "normally performed by a judge", he wrote "...there is no reason to believe that such an act has ever been performed by any other Indiana judge, either before or since."
Justice Stewart also denounced it as "legally unsound" to rule that Judge Stump had acted in a "judicial capacity". "A judge is not free, like a loose cannon", he wrote, "to inflict indiscriminate damage whenever he announces that he is acting in his judicial capacity."
Concluding, Justice Stewart argued that the majority misapplied the law of the Pierson case:
Not one of the considerations...summarized in the Pierson opinion was present here. There was no "case," controversial or otherwise. There were no litigants. There was and could be no appeal. And there was not even the pretext of principled decision making. The total absence of any of these normal attributes of a judicial proceeding convinces me that the conduct complained of in this case was not a judicial act.
Justice Powell's dissent
Joining in Justice Stewart's opinion, Justice Lewis Powell filed a separate dissent that emphasized what he called "...the central feature of this case - Judge Stump's preclusion of any possibility for the vindication of respondents' rights elsewhere in the judicial system." Continuing, he wrote:
Underlying the Bradley immunity...is the notion that private rights can be sacrificed in some degree to the achievement of the greater public good deriving from a completely independent judiciary, because there exist alternative forums and methods for vindicating those rights.
But where a judicial officer acts in a manner that precludes all resort to appellate or other judicial remedies that otherwise would be available, the underlying assumption of the Bradley doctrine is inoperative.
Legacy
The decision has been called one of the most controversial decisions in Supreme Court history.
2007 marked the centennial of the 1907 Indiana sterilization law, the first of its kind in the world. Although Linda Sparkman was not sterilized under any of the eugenics laws still on the books in Indiana in 1971, she was invited to unveil a state historic marker describing the original law on April 12, 2007, in Indianapolis. Indiana repealed all laws concerning sterilization of the mentally ill in 1974.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_v._Sparkman
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On This Day: Was Typhoid Mary, who affected others, treated fairly? - Mar. 27, 1915
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374956
On This Day: Be-ins used to be a thing in Central Park, San Francisco, and elsewhere - Mar. 26, 1967
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374931
On This Day: Locked factory doors fire tragedy spurs reforms and women's union movement - Mar. 25, 1911
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374864
On This Day: NATO starts bombing sovereign country, without Security Council approval - Mar. 24, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374840
On This Day: "Gifted" Confederate commander begins campaign that embarrasses Union forces - Mar. 23, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374812
On This Day: Was Typhoid Mary, who affected others, treated fairly? - Mar. 27, 1915
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Mary Mallon
Mary Mallon (1869–1938), commonly known as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born American cook believed to have infected between 51 and 122 people with typhoid fever. The infections caused three confirmed deaths, with unconfirmed estimates of as many as 50. She was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogenic bacteria Salmonella typhi.
She was forcibly quarantined twice by authorities, the second time [starting on March 27, 1915] for the remainder of her life because she persisted in working as a cook and thereby exposed others to the disease. Mallon died after a total of nearly 30 years quarantined. Her popular nickname has since become a term for persons who spread disease or other misfortune, not always aware that they are doing so.
Early life
Mary Mallon was born in 1869 in Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland. She may have been born with typhoid fever as her mother was infected during pregnancy. In 1884 at the age of 15, she emigrated from Ireland to the United States. She lived with her aunt and uncle for a time and worked as a maid, but eventually became a cook for affluent families.
Career
From 1900 to 1907, Mallon worked as a cook in the New York City area for eight families, seven of whom contracted typhoid. In 1900, she worked in Mamaroneck, New York, where within two weeks of her employment, residents developed typhoid fever. In 1901, she relocated to Manhattan, where members of the family for whom she worked developed fevers and diarrhea. Mallon then went to work for a lawyer and left after seven of the eight people in that household became ill.
In June 1904, she was hired by a prosperous lawyer, Henry Gilsey. Soon four of the seven servants were ill. No members of Gilsey's family were infected because they resided separately, and the servants lived in their own house. Immediately after the outbreak began, Mallon left and relocated to Tuxedo Park, where she was hired by George Kessler. Two weeks later, the laundry worker in his household was infected and taken to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center, where her case of typhoid was the first in a long time. The investigator Dr. R. L. Wilson concluded that the laundry worker had caused the outbreak, but he failed to prove it. The laundry worker died soon afterward.
In August 1906, Mallon began a job in Oyster Bay on Long Island with the family of a wealthy New York banker, Charles Elliot Warren. Mallon went along with the Warrens when they rented a house in Oyster Bay for the summer of 1906. From August 27 to September 3, six of the 11 people in the family came down with typhoid fever. The disease at that time was "unusual" in Oyster Bay, according to three medical doctors who practiced there. The landlord, understanding that it would be difficult to rent a house with the reputation of having typhoid, hired several independent experts to find the source of infection. They took water samples from pipes, faucets, toilets, and the cesspool, all of which were negative for typhoid.
Investigation
George Soper, an investigator hired by the Oyster Bay property owner after the outbreak there, had been trying to determine the cause of typhoid outbreaks in affluent families, when it was known that the disease typically occurred in unsanitary conditions. He discovered that a female Irish cook, who fitted the physical description he had been given, was involved in all of the outbreaks. He was unable to locate her because she generally left after an outbreak began, without giving a forwarding address. The Park Avenue outbreak helped to identify Mallon as the source of the infections. Soper learned of the case while it was still active and discovered Mallon was the cook.
Soper first met Mallon in the kitchen of the Bownes' Park Avenue penthouse and accused her of spreading the disease. Though Soper himself recollected his behavior "as diplomatic as possible," he infuriated Mallon and she threatened him with a carving fork. When Mallon refused to give samples, Soper decided to compile a five-year history of her employment. He found that, of the eight families that had hired Mallon as a cook, members of seven claimed to have contracted typhoid fever. Then Soper learned where Mallon's boyfriend lived and arranged a new meeting there. He took Dr. Raymond Hoobler in an attempt to persuade Mary to give them samples of urine and stool for analysis. Mallon again refused to cooperate, claiming that typhoid was everywhere and that the outbreaks had happened because of contaminated food and water. At that time, the concept of healthy carriers was unknown even to healthcare workers.
Soper published his findings on June 15, 1907, in the Journal of the American Medical Association. He wrote:
It was found that the family changed cooks on August 4. This was about three weeks before the typhoid epidemic broke out. The new cook, Mallon, remained in the family only a short time and left about three weeks after the outbreak occurred. Mallon was described as an Irish woman about 40 years of age, tall, heavy, single. She seemed to be in perfect health.
First quarantine (1907–1910)
Soper notified the New York City Health Department, whose investigators realized that Mallon was a typhoid carrier. By sections 1169 and 1170 of the Greater New York Charter, Mallon was arrested as a public health threat. She was forced into an ambulance by five policemen and Dr. Josephine Baker, who at some time had to sit on Mallon to restrain her.
Mallon was transported to the Willard Parker Hospital, where she was restrained and forced to give samples. For four days, she was not allowed to get up and use the bathroom on her own. The massive numbers of typhoid bacteria that were discovered in her stool samples indicated that the infection source was in her gallbladder. During questioning, Mallon admitted that she almost never washed her hands. This was not unusual at the time; the germ theory of disease still was not fully accepted.
On March 19, 1907, Mallon was sentenced to quarantine on North Brother Island. While quarantined she gave stool and urine samples three times per week. Authorities suggested removing her gallbladder, but she refused because she claimed she did not believe she carried the disease. At the time, gallbladder removal was dangerous, and people had died from the procedure. Mallon was also unwilling to stop working as a cook, a job that earned more money for her than any other. Having no home of her own, she was always on the verge of poverty.
After the publication of Soper's article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Mallon attracted extensive media attention and received the nickname "Typhoid Mary." Later, in a textbook that defined typhoid fever, she again was termed "Typhoid Mary."
Soper visited Mallon in quarantine, telling her he would write a book and give her part of the royalties. She angrily rejected his proposal and locked herself in the bathroom until he left. She hated the nickname and wrote in a letter to her lawyer:
I wonder how the said Dr. William H. Park would like to be insulted and put in the Journal and call him or his wife Typhoid William Park.
Not all medical experts endorsed the decision to forcibly quarantine Mallon. For example, Milton J. Rosenau and Charles V. Chapin both argued that she just had to be taught to carefully treat her condition and ensure that she would not transmit the typhoid to others. Both considered isolation to be an unnecessary, overly strict punishment.
Mallon suffered from a nervous breakdown after her arrest and forcible transportation to the hospital. In 1909 she tried to sue the New York Health Department, but her complaint was denied and the case dismissed by the New York Supreme Court. In a letter to her lawyer she complained that she was treated like a "guinea pig." She was obliged to give samples for analysis three times a week, but for six months was not allowed to visit an eye doctor, even though her eyelid was paralyzed and she had to bandage it at night. Her medical treatment was hectic: she was given urotropin in three-month courses for a year, threatening to destroy her kidneys. That was changed to brewer's yeast and hexamethylenetetramine in increasing doses. She was first told that she had typhoid in her intestinal tract, then in her bowel muscles, then in her gallbladder.
Mallon herself claimed never to believe that she was a carrier. With the help of a friend, she sent several samples to an independent New York laboratory. All came back negative for typhoid. On North Brother Island, almost a quarter of her analyses from March 1907 through June 1909 were also negative.
After 2 years and 11 months of Mallon's quarantine, Eugene H. Porter, the New York State Commissioner of Health, decided that disease carriers should no longer be quarantined and that Mallon could be freed if she agreed to stop working as a cook and take reasonable efforts to avoid transmitting typhoid to others. On February 19, 1910, Mallon said she was "prepared to change her occupation (that of a cook), and would give assurance by affidavit that she would upon her release take such hygienic precautions as would protect those with whom she came in contact, from infection." She was released from quarantine and returned to the mainland.
Release and second quarantine (1915–1938)
Upon her release, Mallon was given a job as a laundry worker, which paid less than cooking—$20 per month instead of $50. After a time she wounded her arm and the wound became infected, meaning that she could not work at all for six months. After several unsuccessful years, she started cooking again. She used fake surnames like Breshof or Brown, and accepted jobs as a cook against the explicit instructions of health authorities. No agencies that hired servants for affluent families would offer her employment, so for the next five years, she worked in a number of kitchens in restaurants, hotels, and spa facilities. Almost everywhere she worked, there were outbreaks of typhoid. However, she changed jobs frequently, and Soper was unable to find her.
In 1915, Mallon started working at Sloane Hospital for Women in New York City. Soon 25 people were infected, and two died. The chief obstetrician, Dr. Edward B. Cragin, called Soper and asked him to help in the investigation. Soper identified Mallon from the servants' verbal descriptions and also by her handwriting.
Mallon fled again, but the police were able to find and arrest her when she took food to a friend on Long Island. Mallon was returned to quarantine on North Brother Island on March 27, 1915.
Little is known about her life during the second quarantine. She remained on North Brother for more than 23 years, and the authorities gave her a private one-story cottage. As of 1918, she was allowed to take day trips to the mainland. In 1925, Dr. Alexandra Plavska came to the island for an internship. She organized a laboratory on the second floor of the chapel and offered Mallon a job as a technician. Mallon washed bottles, did recordings, and prepared glasses for pathologists.
Media reception
After Mallon was sent into her initial quarantine, the newspapers changed their opinion of her case. The articles at first mentioned how Dr. Josephine Baker claimed Mallon attacked her and the other doctors with forks, and came at them fighting and swearing. Later the press articles shifted the blame away from being her fault, the claim being that she was unaware she was carrying anything and instead germs that she had no control over were to blame.
The newspapers also claimed that Mallon was prohibited from using the telephone to contact anybody except the surgeons treating her and her guard. Stories that once celebrated the public health department and legal system eventually became sympathetic to Mallon and the events she supposedly encountered. Public health officials claimed the opposite, that she was treated to their best ability but in return refused to comply with the requests of the health officials.
Death
Mallon spent the rest of her life in quarantine at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island. She died at age 69.
Some sources claim that a post-mortem autopsy found evidence of live typhoid bacteria in Mallon's gallbladder. Soper wrote, however, that there was no autopsy, a claim cited by other researchers to assert a conspiracy to calm public opinion after her death.
Aftermath
Mallon's case became the first in which an asymptomatic carrier was discovered and isolated forcibly. The ethical and legal issues raised by her case are still discussed. Research has resulted in an estimate that Mallon had contaminated "at least one hundred and twenty two people, including five dead". Other sources attribute at least three deaths to contact with Mallon, but because of health officials' inability to persuade her to cooperate, the exact number is not known. Some have estimated that contact with her may have caused 50 fatalities.
In a 2013 article in the Annals of Gastroenterology, the authors concluded:
The history of Mary Mallon, declared "unclean" like a leper, may give us some moral lessons on how to protect the ill and how we can be protected from illness [...] By the time she died New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Salmonella typhi, but no one else was forcibly confined or victimized as an "unwanted ill".
Two scholarly sources combined to provide this conclusion:
This case highlighted the problematic nature of the subject and the need for an enhanced medical and legal-social treatment model aimed at improving the status of disease carriers and limiting their impact on society.
Other healthy typhoid carriers identified in the first quarter of the 20th century include Tony Labella, an Italian immigrant, presumed to have caused more than 100 cases (with five deaths); an Adirondack guide dubbed "Typhoid John", presumed to have infected 36 people (with two deaths); and Alphonse Cotils, a restaurateur and bakery owner.
The health technology of the era did not have a completely effective solution: there were not any antibiotics to fight the infection, and gallbladder removal was a dangerous, sometimes fatal operation. Some modern specialists claim that typhoid bacteria can become integrated in macrophages and then reside in intestinal lymph nodes or the spleen.
Ethics
The ethical question of her arrest and forced quarantine is still being debated. Historians frequently discuss the argument of Mallon knowing that she was infecting her clients with typhoid based on the frequency of the disease being present after her departure. They also cite the argument that antibiotics did not exist at this time and ten percent of those affected by Mallon carrying the infection died. By this argument Mallon could be considered a murderer of those ten percent of people if she knew she was a carrier of the disease, and would be a justification for her arrest.
Others argue that Mallon did not know that she had the bacteria and therefore did not deserve to be arrested when she never committed a crime. At the time, asymptomatic carriers were not understood and Mallon was believed to have said that she did not feel sick, look sick, or have any sort of visible sickness. Although Mallon did not feel ill or look sick, the disease was living dormant in what was assumed to be her gallbladder.
Lessons learned
Mallon was the first person found to be an asymptomatic carrier of the typhoid bacterium, and this caused the health officials to have little to no idea of how to deal with her. However, Mallon's case helped these officials identify other people who carried diseases that were dormant in their bodies based on the information they learned from Mallon's case. Mallon's case created controversy concerning personal autonomy and social responsibility. It also was the first case that provided good evidence of the existence of asymptomatic carriers.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallon
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On This Day: Be-ins used to be a thing in Central Park, San Francisco, and elsewhere - Mar. 26, 1967
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374931
On This Day: Locked factory doors fire tragedy spurs reforms and women's union movement - Mar. 25, 1911
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374864
On This Day: NATO starts bombing sovereign country, without Security Council approval - Mar. 24, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374840
On This Day: "Gifted" Confederate commander begins campaign that embarrasses Union forces - Mar. 23, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374812
On This Day: 50 years of Roman Empire civil war, invasions, economic collapse begin - Mar. 22, 235
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374769
On This Day: Be-ins used to be a thing in Central Park, San Francisco, and elsewhere - Mar. 26, 1967
(edited from article)
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March 26: The Central Park Hippie “Be In” (1967)
The hippies may have been a small subsection of the 1960s counterculture, but they had a pretty awesome run. On March 26, 1967, over 10,000 congregated in Central Park for an Easter Sunday “Be In.” The event, which defies obvious description, was the first of many such events in New York City during what became famously known as the “Summer of Love.”
The only reliable coverage of the day’s events can be found in the Village Voice, yet another reminder of that once essential newspaper’s sad demise over the past decade. Don McNeil captured the moment:
Bonfires burned on the hills, their smoke mixing with bright balloons among the barren trees and high, high above kites wafted in the air. Rhythms and music and mantras from all corners of the meadow echoed in exquisite harmony, and thousands of lovers vibrated into the night. It was miraculous.
It was a feast for the senses; the beauty of the colors, clothes, and shrines, the sounds and the rhythms, at once familiar, the smell of flowers and frankincense, the taste of jellybeans. But the spirit of the Be-In was tuned — in time — to past echoes and future premonitions. Layers of inhibitions were peeled away and, for many, love and laughter became suddenly fresh.
People climbed into trees and made animal calls, and were answered by calls from other trees. Two men stripped naked, and were gently persuaded to re-clothe as the police appeared. Herds of people rushed together from encampments on the hills to converge en masse on the great mud of the meadow. They joined hands to form great circles, hundreds of yards in diameter, and broke to hurtle to the center in a joyous, crushing, multi-embracing pigpile. Chains of people careened through the crowds at a full run. Their energy seemed inexhaustible.
https://janos.nyc/history/today-in-nyc-history/march-26-the-central-park-hippie-be-in-1967/
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Central Park be-ins
In the 1960s, several "be-ins" were held in Central Park, Manhattan, New York City to protest against various issues such as U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and racism.
Background
During the 1960s America was involved in the Vietnam War. This war was a controversial one because many people were against the United States' involvement in South Vietnam. Adding to the tension of the Americans against the war was the emergence of a generation of people who were a part of the counter-culture and believed that they should do anything possible to go against the establishment. The counter-culture generation decided that Central Park would be the perfect host for their demonstrations.
In 1965, citizens of New York experienced their first blow against their freedom of speech as Commissioner, Newbold Morris, refused to give them a permit that they would need in order to use a section of the park for anti-war speeches. Opponents of the ban called it a form of discrimination. In 1967, Parks Commissioner August Heckscher II said that Central Park would no longer be allowed to serve as a venue for mass demonstrations because they were disruptive and caused damages to the park which were costly.
After Hecksher was met with great opposition by protestors who held up unauthorized banners and burned draft cards in the park anyway, he decided to set up designated areas just for these types of demonstrations such as Randall's Island. As a part of the compromise made by the New York Civil Liberties Union, a separate area in Central Park was set aside for big demonstrations.
1967
On New Year's Eve 1967, a group of one thousand people accompanied by music and geese burned down a Christmas tree in Central Park. The city's parks commissioner, Thomas P.F. Hoving, was present at the event. About this demonstration, he stated, "We're going to do this again... you know, it's old hat to go to Times Square when we can have such a wonderful happening in Central Park".
The Easter 1967 be-in was organized by Jim Fouratt, an actor; Paul Williams, editor of Crawdaddy! magazine; Susan Hartnett, head of the Experiments in Art and Technology organization; and Claudio Badal, a Chilean poet and playwright. With a budget of $250 they printed 3,000 posters and 40,000 small notices designed by Peter Max and distributed them around the city. The Police and Parks Departments quietly and unofficially cooperated with the organizers. An estimated 10,065 people participated in the event at the Sheep Meadow in Central Park.
The majority of participants were hippies. They were joined by families who had attended the Easter parade and members of the Spanish community who were notified of the event by Spanish language posters. The New York Times described them as "poets from the Bronx, dropouts from the East Village, interior decorators from the East Side, teachers from the West Side and teeny boppers from Long Island" and said that "they wore carnation petals and paper stars and tiny mirrors on foreheads, paint around the mouth and cheeks, flowering bedsheets, buttons and tights".
The event was guarded by small number of police. At 6:45 a.m. the first police car arrived. The car was covered with flowers while the crowd chanted of "daffodil power" at which point the police quickly retreated. While police held their distance most of the day, 5 officers did approach two nude participants, at which point the officers were surrounded while the crowd chanted "We love cops/"Turn on cops".
The situation was defused when the crowd at the urging of other participants backed off. At 7:30 at night the police beamed lights on the group and used bullhorns to tell participants to disperse. Again the police were rushed by participants. Following a brief period of tension the police decided to let the event continue. Black and white film footage from this event appears in the 1972 film Ciao! Manhattan.
Less than a month later, on April 15, another anti-war rally took place as a part of the "Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam". Once again the number of demonstrators grew drastically to an estimated 100–400 thousand attendees. This peace rally, which assembled and started off in Central Park and then marched to the United Nations, was said to be the largest of its kind at its time. The demonstrators ranged from Sioux Indians from South Dakota to members of the African American community all rallying for one cause, peace. There was a peace fair, which featured performances by folk singers and rock groups. People held signs that read "Don't Make Vietnam an American Reservation" "Make Love not War" and "No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger".
The protesters then made their way from Central Park to the U.N., where speeches were given by several leaders including Benjamin Spock, James Bevel, and Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King declared that the war in Vietnam was a "conflict against a coloured people" and that "white Americans are not going to deal in the problems of coloured people when they're exterminating a whole nation of coloured people". Although there were five arrests made during this demonstration, they were of counter-demonstrators who staged an Anti-Communist rally. Around 75 protesters burned their draft cards.
Later that spring the counter-culture revolution continued in Central Park but this time "Armed with electric guitars". About 450 people attended the concert. Various bands such as the Grateful Dead performed for the gatherers who originally were scheduled to gather in Tompkins Square Park but was forced to move to Central Park. The New York Times described the attendees as "young people, some with bare feet and others wearing sandals or socks who did some moderately contortionate dancing at first. But then the pace quickly changed and soon they were jumping around like rag dolls being jerked by wires".
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Human Be-In
The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture and introduced the word "psychedelic" to suburbia.
Counterculture
The Human Be-In focused the key ideas of the 1960s counterculture: personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization, communal living, ecological awareness, higher consciousness (with the aid of psychedelic drugs), acceptance of illicit psychedelics use, and radical New Left political consciousness. The hippie movement developed out of disaffected student communities around San Francisco State University, City College and Berkeley and in San Francisco's beat generation poets and jazz hipsters, who also combined a search for intuitive spontaneity with a rejection of "middle-class morality".
Protests
The Human Be-In took its name from a chance remark by the artist Michael Bowen made at the Love Pageant Rally. The playful name combined humanist values with the scores of sit-ins that had been reforming college and university practices and eroding the vestiges of entrenched segregation, starting with the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee. The first major teach-in had been organized by Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Michigan, 24–25 March 1965.
Event
The Human Be-In was announced on the cover of the fifth issue of the San Francisco Oracle as "A Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In". The occasion was a new California law banning the use of the psychedelic drug LSD that had come into effect on October 6, 1966. The speakers at the rally were all invited by Bowen, the main organizer. They included Timothy Leary in his first San Francisco appearance, who set the tone that afternoon with his famous phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out" and Richard Alpert (soon to be known as "Ram Dass"
, and poets like Allen Ginsberg, who chanted mantras, Gary Snyder and Michael McClure. Other counterculture gurus included comedian Dick Gregory, Lenore Kandel, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jerry Rubin, and Alan Watts. Music was provided by a host of local rock bands including Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Blue Cheer, most of whom had been staples of the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom. "Underground chemist" Owsley Stanley provided massive amounts of his "White Lightning" LSD, specially produced for the event, as well as 75 twenty-pound turkeys, for free distribution by the Diggers.
The national media were stunned, publicity about this event leading to the mass movement of young people from all over America to descend on the Haight-Ashbury area. Reports were unable to agree whether 20,000 or 30,000 people showed up at the Be-In. Soon every gathering was an "-In" of some kind: Just four weeks later was Bob Fass's Human Fly-In, then the Love-In (March 26, 1967 at Elysian Park, Los Angeles), the Emmett Grogan inspired Sweep-In, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In comedy television show began airing over NBC just a year later on January 22, 1968. This was followed by the first "Yip-In" (March 21, 1968, at Grand Central Terminal), another "Love-In" (April 14, 1968, at Malibu Canyon) and, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Bed-In" (March 25, 1969, in Amsterdam).
Inspiration
The Human Be-In was organized mainly by Bowen with the assistance of poet Allen Cohen in the organizational work. The idea of the Human Be-In was born of a fear that the movement would be erased due to tensions between factions of the Hippie movement. Bowen writes "The anti-war and free speech movement in Berkeley thought the Hippies were too disengaged and spaced out. Their influence might draw the young away from resistance to the war.
Legacy
The counterculture that surfaced at the "Human Be-In" encouraged people to "question authority" with regard to civil rights, women's rights, and consumer rights. Underground newspapers and radio stations served as its alternative media.
A Human Be-In was put on in Denver, Colorado in July 1967 by Chet Helms and Barry Fey to harness the energy of the famed San Francisco event that occurred in January and promote their new Family Dog Productions venue, The Family Dog Denver. The event attracted 5,000 people and featured performances by Grateful Dead, Odetta and Captain Beefheart. Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey were said to have also been in attendance.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_be-ins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Be-In
---------------------------------------------------------
On This Day: Locked factory doors fire tragedy spurs reforms and women's union movement - Mar. 25, 1911
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374864
On This Day: NATO starts bombing sovereign country, without Security Council approval - Mar. 24, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374840
On This Day: "Gifted" Confederate commander begins campaign that embarrasses Union forces - Mar. 23, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374812
On This Day: 50 years of Roman Empire civil war, invasions, economic collapse begin - Mar. 22, 235
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374769
On This Day: A step forward from feudalism, a devastating step back for women and slavery - Mar. 21, 1804
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374692
On This Day: Locked factory doors fire tragedy spurs reforms and women's union movement - Mar. 25, 1911
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and girls and 23 men – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, falling, or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian or Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese.
The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, which had been built in 1901. Later renamed the "Brown Building", it still stands at 23–29 Washington Place near Washington Square Park, on the New York University (NYU) campus. The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.
Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. There were no sprinklers in the building. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.
Background
The Triangle Waist Company factory occupied the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the 10-story Asch Building on the northwest corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, just east of Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The factory produced women's blouses, known as "shirtwaists". The factory normally employed about 500 workers, mostly young Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls, who worked nine hours a day on weekdays plus seven hours on Saturdays, earning for their 52 hours of work between $7 and $12 a week, the equivalent of $191 to $327 a week in 2018 currency, or $3.67 to $6.29 per hour.
[Far-reaching reforms accomplished]
Rose Schneiderman, a prominent socialist and union activist, gave a speech at the memorial meeting held in the Metropolitan Opera House on April 2, 1911, to an audience largely made up of the members of the Women's Trade Union League. She used the fire as an argument for factory workers to organize:
I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting... We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers, and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.
Public officials have only words of warning to us-warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable.
I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.
Others in the community, and in particular in the ILGWU, believed that political reform could help. In New York City, a Committee on Public Safety was formed, headed by eyewitness Frances Perkins – who 22 years later would be appointed United States Secretary of Labor – to identify specific problems and lobby for new legislation, such as the bill to grant workers shorter hours in a work week, known as the "54-hour Bill".
The committee's representatives in Albany obtained the backing of Tammany Hall's Al Smith, the Majority Leader of the Assembly, and Robert F. Wagner, the Majority Leader of the Senate, and this collaboration of machine politicians and reformers – also known as "do-gooders" or "goo-goos" – got results, especially since Tammany's chief, Charles F. Murphy, realized the goodwill to be had as champion of the downtrodden.
The New York State Legislature then created the Factory Investigating Commission to "investigate factory conditions in this and other cities and to report remedial measures of legislation to prevent hazard or loss of life among employees through fire, unsanitary conditions, and occupational diseases."
The Commission was chaired by Wagner and co-chaired by Al Smith. They held a series of widely publicized investigations around the state, interviewing 222 witnesses and taking 3,500 pages of testimony. They hired field agents to do on-site inspections of factories. They started with the issue of fire safety and moved on to broader issues of the risks of injury in the factory environment. Their findings led to thirty-eight new laws regulating labor in New York state, and gave them a reputation as leading progressive reformers working on behalf of the working class.
In the process, they changed Tammany's reputation from mere corruption to progressive endeavors to help the workers. New York City's Fire Chief John Kenlon told the investigators that his department had identified more than 200 factories where conditions made a fire like that at the Triangle Factory possible. The State Commissions's reports helped modernize the state's labor laws, making New York State "one of the most progressive states in terms of labor reform."
New laws mandated better building access and egress, fireproofing requirements, the availability of fire extinguishers, the installation of alarm systems and automatic sprinklers, and better eating and toilet facilities for workers, and limited the number of hours that women and children could work. In the years from 1911 to 1913, 60 of the 64 new laws recommended by the Commission were legislated with the support of Governor William Sulzer.
As a result of the fire, the American Society of Safety Professionals was founded in New York City on October 14, 1911.
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first US unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s. The union, generally referred to as the "ILGWU" or the "ILG", merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in the 1990s to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as UNITE HERE. The two unions that formed UNITE in 1995 represented 250,000 workers between them, down from the ILGWU's peak membership of 450,000 in 1969.
The union also became more involved in electoral politics, in part as a result of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The fire had differing effects on the community. For some it radicalized them still further.
Others in the union drew a different lesson from events: working with local Tammany Hall officials, such as Al Smith and Robert F. Wagner, and progressive reformers, such as Frances Perkins, they pushed for comprehensive safety and workers' compensation laws. The ILG leadership formed bonds with those reformers and politicians that would continue for another forty years, through the New Deal and beyond.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ladies_Garment_Workers_Union
---------------------------------------------------------
On This Day: NATO starts bombing sovereign country, without Security Council approval - Mar. 24, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374840
On This Day: "Gifted" Confederate commander begins campaign that embarrasses Union forces - Mar. 23, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374812
On This Day: 50 years of Roman Empire civil war, invasions, economic collapse begin - Mar. 22, 235
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374769
On This Day: A step forward from feudalism, a devastating step back for women and slavery - Mar. 21, 1804
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374692
On This Day: Einstein publishes "the most beautiful of all existing physical theories" - Mar. 20, 1916
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374627
On This Day: Locked factory doors fire tragedy spurs reforms and women's union movement - Mar. 25, 1911
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers – 123 women and girls and 23 men – who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, falling, or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian or Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno, and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese.
The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, which had been built in 1901. Later renamed the "Brown Building", it still stands at 23–29 Washington Place near Washington Square Park, on the New York University (NYU) campus. The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.
Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. There were no sprinklers in the building. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.
Background
The Triangle Waist Company factory occupied the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the 10-story Asch Building on the northwest corner of Greene Street and Washington Place, just east of Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The factory produced women's blouses, known as "shirtwaists". The factory normally employed about 500 workers, mostly young Italian and Jewish immigrant women and girls, who worked nine hours a day on weekdays plus seven hours on Saturdays, earning for their 52 hours of work between $7 and $12 a week, the equivalent of $191 to $327 a week in 2018 currency, or $3.67 to $6.29 per hour.
[Far-reaching reforms accomplished]
Rose Schneiderman, a prominent socialist and union activist, gave a speech at the memorial meeting held in the Metropolitan Opera House on April 2, 1911, to an audience largely made up of the members of the Women's Trade Union League. She used the fire as an argument for factory workers to organize:
I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting... We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers, and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.
Public officials have only words of warning to us-warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable.
I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.
Others in the community, and in particular in the ILGWU, believed that political reform could help. In New York City, a Committee on Public Safety was formed, headed by eyewitness Frances Perkins – who 22 years later would be appointed United States Secretary of Labor – to identify specific problems and lobby for new legislation, such as the bill to grant workers shorter hours in a work week, known as the "54-hour Bill".
The committee's representatives in Albany obtained the backing of Tammany Hall's Al Smith, the Majority Leader of the Assembly, and Robert F. Wagner, the Majority Leader of the Senate, and this collaboration of machine politicians and reformers – also known as "do-gooders" or "goo-goos" – got results, especially since Tammany's chief, Charles F. Murphy, realized the goodwill to be had as champion of the downtrodden.
The New York State Legislature then created the Factory Investigating Commission to "investigate factory conditions in this and other cities and to report remedial measures of legislation to prevent hazard or loss of life among employees through fire, unsanitary conditions, and occupational diseases."
The Commission was chaired by Wagner and co-chaired by Al Smith. They held a series of widely publicized investigations around the state, interviewing 222 witnesses and taking 3,500 pages of testimony. They hired field agents to do on-site inspections of factories. They started with the issue of fire safety and moved on to broader issues of the risks of injury in the factory environment. Their findings led to thirty-eight new laws regulating labor in New York state, and gave them a reputation as leading progressive reformers working on behalf of the working class.
In the process, they changed Tammany's reputation from mere corruption to progressive endeavors to help the workers. New York City's Fire Chief John Kenlon told the investigators that his department had identified more than 200 factories where conditions made a fire like that at the Triangle Factory possible. The State Commissions's reports helped modernize the state's labor laws, making New York State "one of the most progressive states in terms of labor reform."
New laws mandated better building access and egress, fireproofing requirements, the availability of fire extinguishers, the installation of alarm systems and automatic sprinklers, and better eating and toilet facilities for workers, and limited the number of hours that women and children could work. In the years from 1911 to 1913, 60 of the 64 new laws recommended by the Commission were legislated with the support of Governor William Sulzer.
As a result of the fire, the American Society of Safety Professionals was founded in New York City on October 14, 1911.
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first US unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s. The union, generally referred to as the "ILGWU" or the "ILG", merged with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union in the 1990s to form the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE). UNITE merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) in 2004 to create a new union known as UNITE HERE. The two unions that formed UNITE in 1995 represented 250,000 workers between them, down from the ILGWU's peak membership of 450,000 in 1969.
The union also became more involved in electoral politics, in part as a result of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The fire had differing effects on the community. For some it radicalized them still further.
Others in the union drew a different lesson from events: working with local Tammany Hall officials, such as Al Smith and Robert F. Wagner, and progressive reformers, such as Frances Perkins, they pushed for comprehensive safety and workers' compensation laws. The ILG leadership formed bonds with those reformers and politicians that would continue for another forty years, through the New Deal and beyond.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ladies_Garment_Workers_Union
---------------------------------------------------------
On This Day: NATO starts bombing sovereign country, without Security Council approval - Mar. 24, 1999
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374840
On This Day: "Gifted" Confederate commander begins campaign that embarrasses Union forces - Mar. 23, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374812
On This Day: 50 years of Roman Empire civil war, invasions, economic collapse begin - Mar. 22, 235
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374769
On This Day: A step forward from feudalism, a devastating step back for women and slavery - Mar. 21, 1804
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374692
On This Day: Einstein publishes "the most beautiful of all existing physical theories" - Mar. 20, 1916
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374627
On This Day: NATO starts bombing sovereign country, without Security Council approval - Mar. 24, 1999
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an agreement was reached that led to the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army from Kosovo, and the establishment of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.
NATO's intervention was prompted by Yugoslavia's bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of Albanians, which drove the Albanians into neighbouring countries and had the potential to destabilize the region. Yugoslavia's actions had already provoked condemnation by international organisations and agencies such as the UN, NATO, and various INGOs.
Yugoslavia's refusal to sign the Rambouillet Accords was initially offered as justification for NATO's use of force. NATO countries attempted to gain authorisation from the UN Security Council for military action, but were opposed by China and Russia, who indicated that they would veto such a measure. As a result, NATO launched its campaign without the UN's approval, stating that it was a humanitarian intervention. The UN Charter prohibits the use of force except in the case of a decision by the Security Council under Chapter VII, or self-defence against an armed attack – neither of which were present in this case.
By the end of the war, the Yugoslavs had killed 1,500 to 2,131 combatants. 10,317 civilians were killed or missing, with 85% of those being Kosovar Albanian and some 848,000 were expelled from Kosovo. The NATO bombing killed about 1,000 members of the Yugoslav security forces in addition to between 489 and 528 civilians. It destroyed or damaged bridges, industrial plants, hospitals, schools, cultural monuments, and private businesses, as well as barracks and military installations.
In the days after the Yugoslav army withdrew, over 164,000 Serbs and 24,000 Roma left Kosovo. Many of the remaining non-Albanian civilians (as well as Albanians perceived as collaborators) were victims of abuse which included beatings, abductions, and murders. After Kosovo and other Yugoslav Wars, Serbia became home to the highest number of refugees and IDPs (internally displaced persons - including Kosovo Serbs) in Europe.
The bombing was NATO's second major combat operation, following the 1995 bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was the first time that NATO had used military force without the expressed endorsement of the UN Security Council and thus, international legal approval, which triggered debates over the legitimacy of the intervention.
Background
A NATO-facilitated ceasefire between the KLA and Yugoslav forces was signed on 15 October 1998, but both sides broke it two months later and fighting resumed.
When the killing of 45 Kosovar Albanians in the Račak massacre was reported in January 1999, NATO decided that the conflict could only be settled by introducing a military peacekeeping force to forcibly restrain the two sides.
Yugoslavia refused to sign the Rambouillet Accords, which among other things called for 30,000 NATO peacekeeping troops in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory; immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law; and the right to use local roads, ports, railways, and airports without payment and requisition public facilities for its use free of cost. NATO then prepared to install the peacekeepers by force, using this refusal to justify the bombings.
Strategy
Operation Allied Force predominantly used a large-scale air campaign to destroy Yugoslav military infrastructure from high altitudes. After the third day of aerial bombing, NATO had destroyed almost all of its strategic military targets in Yugoslavia. Despite this, the Yugoslav army continued to function and to attack Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) insurgents inside Kosovo, mostly in the regions of Northern and Southwest Kosovo.
NATO bombed strategic economic and societal targets, such as bridges, military facilities, official government facilities, and factories, using long-range cruise missiles to hit heavily defended targets, such as strategic installations in Belgrade and Pristina. The NATO air forces also targeted infrastructure, such as power plants, water-processing plants and the state-owned broadcaster. The Dutch foreign minister Jozias van Aartsen said that the strikes on Yugoslavia should be such as to weaken their military capabilities and prevent further humanitarian atrocities.
Due to restrictive media laws, media in Yugoslavia carried little coverage of what its forces were doing in Kosovo, or of other countries' attitudes to the humanitarian crisis; so, few members of the public expected bombing, instead thinking that a diplomatic deal would be made.
While according to Noel Malcolm: "During the first few days of the air-strike campaign, while NATO confined itself to the use of cruise missiles and high-altitude bombing, the Serbian forces inside Kosovo embarked on a massive campaign of destruction, burning down houses and using tanks and artillery to reduce entire villages to rubble."
[Turning point in the history of warfare]
According to John Keegan, the capitulation of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War marked a turning point in the history of warfare. It "proved that a war can be won by air power alone". Diplomacy had failed before the war, and the deployment of a large NATO ground force was still weeks away when Slobodan Milošević agreed to a peace deal.
NATO forces
Aviation
A large element of the operation was the air forces of NATO, relying heavily on the US Air Force and Navy using the F-16, F-15, F-117, F-14, F/A-18, EA-6B, B-52, KC-135, KC-10, AWACS, and JSTARS from bases throughout Europe and from aircraft carriers in the region.
The French Navy and Air Force operated the Super Etendard and the Mirage 2000. The Italian Air Force operated with 34 Tornado, 12 F-104, 12 AMX, 2 B-707, the Italian Navy operated with Harrier II. The UK's Royal Air Force operated the Harrier GR7 and Tornado ground attack jets as well as an array of support aircraft. Belgian, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and Turkish Air Forces operated F-16s. The Spanish Air Force deployed EF-18s and KC-130s. The Canadian Air Force deployed a total of 18 CF-18s, enabling them to be responsible for 10% of all bombs dropped in the operation.
The US B-2 Spirit stealth bomber saw its first successful combat role in Operation Allied Force, striking from its home base in the contiguous United States.
Even with this air power, noted a RAND Corporation study, "NATO never fully succeeded in neutralising the enemy's radar-guided SAM threat".
Space
Operation Allied Force incorporated the first large-scale use of satellites as a direct method of weapon guidance.
Naval
NATO naval forces operated in the Adriatic Sea. The Royal Navy sent a substantial task force that included the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, which operated Sea Harrier FA2 fighter jets. The RN also deployed destroyers and frigates, and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) provided support vessels, including the aviation training/primary casualty receiving ship RFA Argus. It was the first time the RN used cruise missiles in combat, fired from the nuclear fleet submarine HMS Splendid.
The Italian Navy provided a naval task force that included the aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi, a frigate (Maestrale) and a submarine (Sauro class).
The United States Navy provided a naval task force that included the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, USS Vella Gulf, and the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge.
The French Navy provided the aircraft carrier Foch and escorts. The German Navy deployed the frigate Rheinland-Pfalz and Oker, an Oste-class fleet service ship, in the naval operations.
The Netherlands sent the submarine HNLMS Dolfijn to uphold trade embargoes off the coast of Yugoslavia.
Army
NATO ground forces included a US battalion from the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. The unit was deployed in March 1999 to Albania in support of the bombing campaign where the battalion secured the Tirana airfield, Apache helicopter refueling sites, established a forward-operating base to prepare for Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) strikes and offensive ground operations, and deployed a small team with an AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar system to the Albania/Kosovo border where it acquired targets for NATO air strikes.
Task Force Hunter, a US surveillance unit, was deployed to Macedonia, in March, to provide real-time intelligence on Yugoslav forces inside Kosovo. They flew a total of 246 sorties, with five drones lost to enemy fire. A German Army drone battery based at Tetovo was tasked with a similar mission. German forces used CL-289 UAVs from December 1998 to July 1999 to fly 237 sorties over Yugoslav positions, with six drones lost to hostile fire.
Criticism of the campaign [by Republicans and Russia]
A majority of US House Republicans voted against two resolutions, both of which expressed approval for American involvement in the NATO mission.
Moscow criticised the bombing as a breach of international law and a challenge to Russia's status.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
---------------------------------------------------------
On This Day: "Gifted" Confederate commander begins campaign that embarrasses Union forces - Mar. 23, 1862
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374812
On This Day: 50 years of Roman Empire civil war, invasions, economic collapse begin - Mar. 22, 235
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374769
On This Day: A step forward from feudalism, a devastating step back for women and slavery - Mar. 21, 1804
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374692
On This Day: Einstein publishes "the most beautiful of all existing physical theories" - Mar. 20, 1916
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374627
On This Day: Governor signs bill legalizing gambling in Nevada - March 19, 1931
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374572
On This Day: "Gifted" Confederate commander begins campaign that embarrasses Union forces - Mar. 23, 1862
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Jackson's Valley campaign
Jackson's Valley campaign, also known as the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862, was Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's spring 1862 campaign through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia during the American Civil War. Employing audacity and rapid, unpredictable movements on interior lines, Jackson's 17,000 men marched 646 miles in 48 days and won several minor battles as they successfully engaged three Union armies (52,000 men), preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond.
Jackson suffered an initial tactical defeat at the First Battle of Kernstown (March 23, 1862), but it proved to be a strategic Confederate victory because President Abraham Lincoln reinforced the Union's Valley forces with troops that had originally been designated for the Peninsula campaign against Richmond.
[Cartography a decisive advantage]
Following Kernstown, Jackson retreated to form a line at Stony Creek south of Woodstock, making his headquarters at Narrow Passage on Stony Creek. It was there he summoned a local cartographer, Jedediah Hotchkiss, who recommended he withdraw from the indefensible Stony Creek to Rude's Hill, a strategic small promontory but a commanding defensive position astride the Valley Turnpike south of Mt. Jackson. It was at Rude's Hill, which was Jackson's headquarters from April 2–17, that Jackson reorganized his command. Jackson had instructed Hotckiss to "make me a map of the Valley, from Harper's Ferry to Lexington, showing all the points of offence and defence [sic] in those places." The Shenandoah Valley had never been comprehensively mapped before, and Hotchkiss' maps and knowledge of the terrain proved to be a decisive tactical advantage for Jackson throughout the rest of the campaign.
[Union Army pushed back]
On May 8, after more than a month of skirmishing with Banks, Jackson moved deceptively to the west of the Valley and drove back elements of Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont's army in the Battle of McDowell, preventing a potential combination of the two Union armies against him. Jackson then headed down the Valley once again to confront Banks. Concealing his movement in the Luray Valley, Jackson joined forces with Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell and captured the Federal garrison at Front Royal on May 23, causing Banks to retreat to the north. On May 25, in the First Battle of Winchester, Jackson defeated Banks and pursued him until the Union Army crossed the Potomac River into Maryland.
[Ending course of campaign]
Bringing in Union reinforcements from eastern Virginia, Brig. Gen. James Shields recaptured Front Royal and planned to link up with Frémont in Strasburg. Jackson was now threatened by three small Union armies. Withdrawing up the Valley from Winchester, Jackson was pursued by Frémont and Shields. On June 8, Ewell defeated Frémont in the Battle of Cross Keys and on the following day, crossed the North River to join forces with Jackson to defeat Shields in the Battle of Port Republic, bringing the campaign to a close.
Jackson followed up his successful campaign by forced marches to join Gen. Robert E. Lee for the Seven Days Battles outside Richmond. His audacious campaign elevated him to the position of the most famous general in the Confederacy (until this reputation was later supplanted by Lee) and has been studied ever since by military organizations around the world.
Background - [low Southern morale]
In the spring of 1862 "Southern morale... was at its nadir" and "prospects for the Confederacy's survival seemed bleak." Following the successful summer of 1861, particularly the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas), its prospects declined quickly. Union armies in the Western Theater, under Ulysses S. Grant and others, captured Southern territory and won significant battles at Fort Donelson and Shiloh. And in the East, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's massive Army of the Potomac was approaching Richmond from the southeast in the Peninsula campaign, Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell's large corps was poised to hit Richmond from the north, and Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's army was threatening the Shenandoah Valley. However, Jackson's Confederate troops were in "excellent spirits," laying the foundation for his performance in the Valley that spring, which helped derail the Union plans and re-energize Confederate morale elsewhere.
[Shenandoah Valley a strategic geography]
During the Civil War, the Shenandoah Valley was one of the most strategic geographic features of Virginia. The watershed of the Shenandoah River passed between the Blue Ridge Mountains on the east and the Allegheny Mountains to the west, extending 140 miles southwest from the Potomac River at Shepherdstown and Harpers Ferry, at an average width of 25 miles.
The Valley offered two strategic advantages to the Confederates. First, a Northern army entering Virginia could be subjected to Confederate flanking attacks pouring through the many wind gaps across the Blue Ridge. Second, the Valley offered a protected avenue that allowed Confederate armies to head north into Pennsylvania unimpeded; this was the route taken by Gen. Robert E. Lee to invade the North in the Gettysburg campaign of 1863 and by Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early in the Valley campaigns of 1864.
[Subsequent military maneuvers]
After Jackson's victories at Cross Keys and Port Republic, the Union forces withdrew. Frémont marched back to Harrisonburg, where he was frustrated to find orders from Lincoln he had not received in time, telling him not to advance beyond that town against Jackson. As the weather became clear, Jackson's cavalry under Col. Thomas T. Munford harassed Frémont's withdrawal, which reached Mount Jackson on June 11.
Jackson sent messages to Richmond requesting that his force be augmented to 40,000 men so that he could assume the offensive down the Valley and across the Potomac. Lee sent him about 14,000 reinforcements, but then revealed his plan to call Jackson to Richmond to counterattack McClellan's Army of the Potomac and drive it away from Richmond.
Aftermath
With the success of his Valley campaign, Stonewall Jackson became the most celebrated soldier in the Confederacy (until his reputation was eventually eclipsed by Lee's), and his victories lifted the morale of the public. In a classic military campaign of surprise and maneuver, he pressed his army to travel 646 miles in 48 days of marching and won five significant victories with a force of about 17,000 against a combined force of over 50,000. Jackson had accomplished his difficult mission, causing Washington to withhold over 40,000 troops from McClellan's offensive. Military historians Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones summarized a successful campaign:
Always outnumbered seven to three, every time Jackson engaged he fought with the odds of about four to three in his favor—because, moving rapidly on interior lines, he hit fractions of his enemy with the bulk of his own command. ... Jackson enjoyed the great advantage that the northerners remained widely scattered on a perimeter within which his troops could maneuver to concentrate against first one and then another of the Union forces. Lincoln managed very well, personally maneuvering the scattered Union armies. Since neither Lincoln nor his advisers felt that Jackson's small force could truly threaten Washington, they chose an offensive response as they sought to exploit their overwhelming forces and exterior position to overwhelm his army. But Jackson's great ability, celerity of movement, and successful series of small fights determined the outcome.
— Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones, How the North Won
On the Union side, a command shakeup resulted from the embarrassing defeat by a smaller force. McDowell's corps remained in the defense of Washington, with only one division (under Brig. Gen. George A. McCall) able to join McClellan on the Peninsula. Lincoln was disillusioned by the command difficulties of controlling multiple forces in this campaign and created a single new army, the Army of Virginia, under Maj. Gen. John Pope, incorporating the units of Banks, Frémont, McDowell, and several smaller ones from around Washington and western Virginia. This army was soundly defeated by Lee and Jackson in August at the Second Battle of Bull Run during the northern Virginia campaign.
Stonewall Jackson
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (1824–1863) was a general officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He played a prominent role in nearly all military engagements in the Eastern theater of the war until his death. Military historians regard him as one of the most gifted tactical commanders in U.S. history.
Born in what was then part of Virginia (now in West Virginia), Jackson received an appointment to the United States Military Academy, graduating in the class of 1846. He served in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Chapultepec. From 1851 to 1861, he taught at the Virginia Military Institute.
When Virginia seceded from the United States in May 1861 after the Battle of Fort Sumter, Jackson joined the Confederate States Army. He distinguished himself commanding a brigade at the First Battle of Bull Run in July, providing crucial reinforcements and beating back a fierce Union assault. Thus Barnard Elliott Bee Jr. compared him to a "stone wall", which became his enduring nickname.
He performed exceptionally well in various campaigns over the next two years. On May 2, 1863, Jackson was accidentally shot by Confederate pickets. He lost his left arm to amputation. Weakened by his wounds, he died of pneumonia eight days later. His death proved a severe setback for the Confederacy. After Jackson's death, his military exploits developed a legendary quality, becoming an important element of the pseudohistorical ideology of the "Lost Cause".
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson%27s_Valley_campaign
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Jackson
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On This Day: 50 years of Roman Empire civil war, invasions, economic collapse begin - Mar. 22, 235
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374769
On This Day: A step forward from feudalism, a devastating step back for women and slavery - Mar. 21, 1804
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374692
On This Day: Einstein publishes "the most beautiful of all existing physical theories" - Mar. 20, 1916
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374627
On This Day: Governor signs bill legalizing gambling in Nevada - March 19, 1931
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374572
On This Day: Caligula comes to power, issues in popular reforms - March 18, 37
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374524
On This Day: 50 years of Roman Empire civil war, invasions, economic collapse begin - Mar. 22, 235
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Severus Alexander
Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (208 – 21/22 March 235) was Roman emperor from 222 until 235. The last emperor from the Severan dynasty, he succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222, at the age of 13. Alexander himself was eventually assassinated, and his death marked the beginning of the events of the Crisis of the Third Century, which included nearly fifty years of civil war, foreign invasion, and the collapse of the monetary economy.
Alexander was the heir to his cousin, the 18-year-old Emperor Elagabalus. The latter had been murdered along with his mother Julia Soaemias by his own guards, who, as a mark of contempt, had their remains cast into the Tiber river. Alexander and his cousin were both grandsons of Julia Maesa, who was the sister of empress Julia Domna and had arranged for Elagabalus's acclamation as emperor by the Third Gallic Legion.
Alexander's peacetime reign was prosperous. However, Rome was militarily confronted with the rising Sassanid Empire and growing incursions from the tribes of Germania. He managed to check the threat of the Sassanids. But when campaigning against Germanic tribes, Alexander attempted to bring peace by engaging in diplomacy and bribery. This alienated many in the Roman army, leading to a conspiracy that resulted in the assassination of Alexander, his mother Julia Avita Mamaea, and his advisors. After their deaths, the accession of Maximinus Thrax followed. Alexander's death marked the epoch event for the Crisis of the Third Century.
Germanic War
While Alexander was being educated in the Christian doctrines, the northern portion of his empire was being invaded by Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. A new and menacing enemy started to emerge directly after Alexander's success in the Persian war. In 234, the barbarians crossed the Rhine and Danube in hordes that caused alarm as far as Rome. The soldiers serving under Alexander, already demoralized after their costly war against the Persians, were further discontented with their emperor when their homes were destroyed by the barbarian invaders.
As word of the invasion spread, the emperor took the front line and went to battle against the Germanic invaders. The Romans prepared heavily for the war, building a fleet to carry the entire army across. However, at this point in Alexander's career, he still knew little about being a general. Because of this, he hoped the mere threat of his armies would be sufficient to persuade the hostile tribes to surrender. Severus enforced a strict military discipline in his men that sparked a rebellion among his legions.
[Considered dishonorable]
Due to incurring heavy losses against the Persians, and on the advice of his mother, Alexander attempted to buy the Germanic tribes off, so as to gain time.
It was this decision that resulted in the legionaries looking down upon Alexander. They considered him dishonorable and feared he was unfit to be Emperor. Under these circumstances the army swiftly looked to replace Alexander.
Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus was the next best option. He was a soldier from Thrace who had a golden reputation and was working hard to increase his military status. He was also a man with superior personal strength, who rose to his present position from a peasant background. With the Thracian's hailing came the end of the Severan Dynasty, and, with the growing animosity of Severus' army towards him, the path for his assassination was paved.
Assassination
Alexander was forced to face his German enemies in the early months of 235. By the time he and his mother arrived, the situation had settled, and so his mother convinced him that to avoid violence, trying to bribe the German army to surrender was the more sensible course of action. According to historians, it was this tactic combined with insubordination from his own men that destroyed his reputation and popularity. Alexander was thus assassinated together with his mother on 21 or 22 March, in a mutiny of the Legio XXII Primigenia at Moguntiacum (Mainz) while at a meeting with his generals. These assassinations secured the throne for Maximinus.
Legacy
Alexander's death marked the end of the Severan dynasty. He was the last of the Syrian emperors and the first emperor to be overthrown by military discontent on a wide scale. After his death his economic policies were completely discarded, and the Roman currency was devalued; this signaled the beginning of the chaotic period known as the Crisis of the Third Century, which brought the empire to the brink of collapse.
Alexander's death at the hands of his troops can also be seen as the heralding of a new role for Roman emperors. Though they were not yet expected to personally fight in battle during Alexander's time, emperors were increasingly expected to display general competence in military affairs. Thus, Alexander's taking of his mother's advice to not get involved in battle, his dishonorable and unsoldierly methods of dealing with the Germanic threat, and the relative failure of his military campaign against the Persians were all deemed highly unacceptable by the soldiers. Indeed, Maximinus was able to overthrow Alexander by "harping on his own military excellence in contrast to that feeble coward". Yet by arrogating the power to dethrone their emperor, the legions paved the way for a half-century of widespread chaos and instability.
Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed. The crisis ended due to the military victories of Aurelian and with the accession of Diocletian and his implementation of reforms.
The crisis began in 235 with the assassination of Emperor Severus Alexander by his own troops. During the following 50-year period, the empire saw the combined pressures of barbarian invasions and migrations into Roman territory, civil wars, peasant rebellions and political instability, with multiple usurpers competing for power. This led to the debasement of currency and economic collapse, with the Plague of Cyprian contributing to the disorder. Roman troops became more reliant over time on the growing influence of the barbarian mercenaries known as foederati. Roman commanders in the field, although nominally working for Rome, became increasingly independent.
[Roman Empire split into three]
By 268, the empire had split into three competing states: the Gallic Empire (including the Roman provinces of Gaul, Britannia and, briefly, Hispania); the Palmyrene Empire (including the eastern provinces of Syria Palaestina and Aegyptus); and, between them, the Italian-centered Roman Empire proper.
There were at least 26 claimants to the title of emperor, mostly prominent Roman army generals, who assumed imperial power over all or part of the empire. The same number of men became accepted by the Roman Senate as emperor during this period and so became legitimate emperors. Later, Aurelian (270–275) reunited the empire militarily. The crisis ended with Diocletian and his restructuring of Roman imperial government in 285. This helped to stabilize the empire economically and militarily for a further 150 years.
The crisis resulted in such profound changes in the empire's institutions, society, economic life, and religion that it is increasingly seen by most historians as defining the transition between the historical periods of classical antiquity and late antiquity.
[Bribery]
The army required larger and larger bribes to remain loyal. Septimius Severus raised the pay of legionaries, and gave substantial donativum to the troops. The large and ongoing increase in military expenditure caused problems for all of his successors.
[Marauding enemies and civil war]
Instead of warring in foreign lands, the Roman empire was increasingly put on the defensive by marauding enemies and civil wars. This cut off the essential source of income gained from plundering enemy countries, while opening up the Roman countryside to economic devastation from looters both foreign and domestic. Frequent civil wars contributed to depletion of the army's manpower, and drafting replacement soldiers strained the labour force further. Fighting on multiple fronts, increasing size and pay of the army, increasing cost of transport, populist "bread and circuses" political campaigns, inefficient and corrupt tax collection, unorganised budgeting, and paying off foreign nations for peace all contributed to financial crisis. The emperors responded by confiscating assets and supplies to combat the deficit.
The situation of the Roman Empire became dire in 235. Maximinus marched on Rome but was assassinated by his Legio II Parthica, and subsequently Pupienus and Balbinus were murdered by the Praetorian Guard.
In the following years, numerous generals of the Roman army fought each other for control of the empire and neglected their duties of defending it from invasion. There were frequent raids across the Rhine and Danube frontier by foreign tribes, including the Carpians, Goths, Vandals, and Alamanni, and attacks from Sassanids in the east.
[Climate change and plague as well]
Climate changes and a sea level rise disrupted the agriculture of what is now the Low Countries, forcing tribes residing in the region to migrate into Roman lands. Further disruption arose in 251, when the Plague of Cyprian (possibly smallpox) broke out. This plague caused large-scale death, severely weakening the empire. The situation was worsened in 260 when the emperor Valerian was captured in battle by the Sassanids (he later died in captivity).
Throughout the period, numerous usurpers claimed the imperial throne. In the absence of a strong central authority, the empire broke into three competing states. The Roman provinces of Gaul, Britain, and Hispania broke off to form the Gallic Empire in 260. The eastern provinces of Syria, Palestine, and Aegyptus also became independent as the Palmyrene Empire in 267. The remaining provinces, centered on Italy, stayed under a single ruler but now faced threats on every side.
Gothic raids in the 3rd century
Fundamental problems with the empire still remained. The right of imperial succession had never been clearly defined, which was a factor in the continuous civil wars as competing factions in the military, Senate, and other parties put forward their favored candidate for emperor. The sheer size of the empire, which had been an issue since the late Roman Republic three centuries earlier, continued to make it difficult for a single ruler to effectively counter multiple threats at the same time. These continuing problems were addressed by the radical reforms of Diocletian, who broke the cycle of usurpation. He began by sharing his rule with a colleague, then formally established the Tetrarchy of four co-emperors in 293. However the trend of civil war would continue after the abdication of Diocletian in the Civil wars of the Tetrarchy (306–324) until the rise of Constantine the Great as sole Emperor. The empire survived until 476 in the West and until 1453 in the East.
Foreign invasions
The defensive battles that Rome had to endure on the Danube since the 230s, however, paled in comparison to the threat the empire faced in the East. There, Sassanid Persia represented a far greater danger to Rome than the isolated attacks of Germanic tribes. The Sassanids had in 224 and 226 overthrown the Parthian Arsacids, and the Persian King Ardashir I, who also wanted to prove his legitimacy through military successes, had already penetrated into Roman territory at the time of Severus Alexander, probably taking the strategically important cities of Nisibis and Carrhae in 235/236.
Economic impact
Internally, the empire faced hyperinflation caused by years of coinage devaluation. As each of the short-lived emperors took power, they needed ways to raise money quickly to pay the military's "accession bonus" and the easiest way to do so was by inflating the coinage severely, a process made possible by debasing the coinage with bronze and copper.
This resulted in runaway rises in prices, and by the time Diocletian came to power, the old coinage of the Roman Empire had nearly collapsed.
Breakdown of the internal trade network
One of the most profound and lasting effects of the Crisis of the Third Century was the disruption of Rome's extensive internal trade network. Ever since the Pax Romana, starting with Augustus, the empire's economy had depended in large part on trade between Mediterranean ports and across the extensive road systems to the Empire's interior. Merchants could travel from one end of the empire to the other in relative safety within a few weeks, moving agricultural goods produced in the provinces to the cities, and manufactured goods produced by the great cities of the East to the more rural provinces.
Large estates produced cash crops for export and used the resulting revenues to import food and urban manufactured goods. This resulted in a great deal of economic interdependence among the empire's inhabitants.
With the onset of the Crisis of the Third Century, however, this vast internal trade network broke down. The widespread civil unrest made it no longer safe for merchants to travel as they once had, and the financial crisis that struck made exchange very difficult with the debased currency. This produced profound changes that, in many ways, foreshadowed the very decentralized economic character of the coming Middle Ages.
[Size of cities change]
Even the Roman cities began to change in character. The large cities of classical antiquity slowly gave way to the smaller, walled cities that became common in the Middle Ages. These changes were not restricted to the third century, but took place slowly over a long period, and were punctuated with many temporary reversals.
The balance of power clearly shifted eastward during this period, as evidenced by the choice of Diocletian to rule from Nicomedia in Asia Minor, putting his second in command, Maximian, in Milan. This would have a considerable impact on the later development of the empire with a richer, more stable eastern empire surviving the end of Roman rule in the west.
While imperial revenues fell, imperial expenses rose sharply. More soldiers, greater proportions of cavalry, and the ruinous expense of walling in cities all added to the toll. Goods and services previously paid for by the government were now demanded in addition to monetary taxes. The empire suffered from a crippling labour shortage.
The steady exodus of both rich and poor from the cities and now-unprofitable professions forced Diocletian to use compulsion; conscription was made universal, most trades were made hereditary, and workers could not legally leave their jobs or travel elsewhere to seek better-paying ones. This included the unwanted middle-class civil service positions and under Constantine, the military. Constantine also tried to provide social programs for the poor to reduce the labour shortage.
Increased militarization
All the barracks emperors based their power on the military and on the soldiers of the field armies, not on the Praetorians in Rome. Thus, Rome lost its role as the political center of the empire during the third century, although it remained ideologically important. In order to legitimize and secure their rule, the emperors of the third century needed above all military successes.
The centre of decision-making shifted away from Rome and to wherever the emperor was with his armies, typically, in the east. This led to the transfer of the capital to the four cities Milan, Trier, Nicomedia, and Sirmium, and then to Constantinople. The Senate ceased to be the main governing organ and instead members of the equestrian class who filled the military officer corps became increasingly prominent.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severus_Alexander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century
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On This Day: A step forward from feudalism, a devastating step back for women and slavery - Mar. 21, 1804
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374692
On This Day: Einstein publishes "the most beautiful of all existing physical theories" - Mar. 20, 1916
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374627
On This Day: Governor signs bill legalizing gambling in Nevada - March 19, 1931
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374572
On This Day: Caligula comes to power, issues in popular reforms - March 18, 37
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374524
On This Day: Burst of Joy photo symbolizes release of POWs from North Vietnam - Mar. 17, 1973
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374479
On This Day: A step forward from feudalism, a devastating step back for women and slavery - Mar. 21, 1804
(edited from article)
"
Napoleonic Code approved in France - March 21, 1804
After four years of debate and planning, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte enacts a new legal framework for France, known as the “Napoleonic Code.” The civil code gave post-revolutionary France its first coherent set of laws concerning property, colonial affairs, the family and individual rights.
In 1804, General Napoleon Bonaparte, as the new emperor of France, began the arduous task of revising France’s outdated and muddled legal system. He established a special commission, led by J.J. Cambaceres, which met more than 80 times to discuss the revolutionary legal revisions, and Napoleon presided over nearly half of these sessions. In March 1804, the Napoleonic Code was finally approved.
It codified several branches of law, including commercial and criminal law, and divided civil law into categories of property and family. The Napoleonic Code made the authority of men over their families stronger, deprived women of any individual rights, and reduced the rights of illegitimate children. All male citizens were also granted equal rights under the law and the right to religious dissent, but colonial slavery was reintroduced. The laws were applied to all territories under Napoleon’s control and were influential in several other European countries and in South America.
"
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/napoleonic-code-approved-in-france
(edited from article)
"
The Napoleonic Code: Property, Succession, and Gender
Deanna Small
University of Minnesota - Morris
July 2022
The Code seemed to quickly turn away from gains women had made. There was a period of time born out of the French Revolution known as “intermediary law” from 1789-1804 which codified several civil liberties and extended them to women. This period of time marked the end of the Ancien Regime and the beginning of a modern legal system. During this time, the intermediary laws included civil marriage, lowering the age of majority to 21 instead of 25, and equal treatment under the law in cases of adultery. In effect, by 1792 the legislation passed had
curtailed the power of husbands and fathers. During the intermediary law period widows gained new authority as the heads of households, but by the Napoleonic Code the system shifted once again. Their authority was gone as the legal system structured itself around an all-powerful male in the family. Their rapidly changing legal status left French women, particularly widows, in precarious and unsettled positions.
The new role of women in France was a part of the Code’s vision for the country. The Napoleonic Code was carefully constructed by Napoleon and its writers to make a legal framework that worked in a market society based on property ownership. It also reinstated patriarchal power in the family. However the new system went farther than simply undoing the legal work of the revolutionary and intermediary period. Women were placed under the complete authority of their husbands. The lack of legal rights for women, unmarried women and their children in particular, was uniquely severe compared to other legal systems. These unmarried women and their children were unable to appeal for compensation or living allowance from the fathers or to take the father to court to receive such things.
"
https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1109&context=horizons
(edited from article)
"
The French Man Who Signed Slavery Back Into Law : Notes on Napoleon
There’s much wrong with the world as we approach the 252nd birthday of Napoleon Bonaparte. But it is a hopeful sign that there’s more attention these days to his sin of legalizing the crime of slavery.
Kerry Dooley Young
Aug 14, 2021
Napoleon holds a unique and awful record. He made France the only nation in history to make enslaving other humans legal after already having already abolished this crime.
Think about that for a minute. In 1802, Napoleon signed a law that made slavery legal again.
France outlawed slavery in 1794. That victory was the result of years of lobbying by advocates for freedom, who were opposed by people who had profited off the misery and pain of those enslaved in French colonies like Saint-Domingue, which became Haiti.
Napoleon thus condemned about 300,000 people to years of life in bondage, according to an article on the DW.com, the English language site of Deutsche Welle. France did not definitively abolished slavery until 1848, about 27 years after Napoleon’s death.
"
https://dooleyyoung.medium.com/the-french-man-who-signed-slavery-back-into-law-notes-on-napoleon-70d59889e1a4
(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Napoleonic Code
The Napoleonic Code, officially the Civil Code of the French, is the French civil code established during the French Consulate period in 1804 and still in force in France, although heavily and frequently amended since its inception.
Napoleon himself was not involved in the drafting of the Code, as it was drafted by a commission of four eminent jurists and entered into force on 21 March 1804. The code, with its stress on clearly written and accessible law, was a major milestone in the abolition of the previous patchwork of feudal laws. Historian Robert Holtman regards it as one of the few documents that have influenced the whole world. The Napoleonic Code is often portrayed to be one of the most widespread system of law in the world, claimed to be in force in various forms in about 120 countries, but many of those countries are civil code countries that had their own version of their civil code for centuries.
The Napoleonic Code was not the first legal code to be established in a European country with a civil-law legal system; it was preceded by the Codex Maximilianeus bavaricus civilis (Bavaria, 1756), the Allgemeines Landrecht (Prussia, 1794), and the West Galician Code (Galicia, then part of Austria, 1797). It was, however, the first modern legal code to be adopted with a pan-European scope, and it strongly influenced the law of many of the countries formed during and after the Napoleonic Wars. The Napoleonic Code influenced developing countries outside Europe attempting to modernize and defeudalize their countries through legal reforms, such as those in the Middle East, while in Latin America the Spanish and Portuguese had established their own versions of the civil code.
History
The categories of the Napoleonic Code were not drawn from earlier French law, but instead from Justinian's sixth-century codification of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, and within it, the Institutes. The Institutes divide into the law of:
persons
things
actions.
Similarly, the Napoleonic Code divided the law into four sections:
persons
property
acquisition of property
civil procedure (moved into a separate code in 1806).
Prior codification attempts
Before the Napoleonic Code, France did not have a single set of laws; law consisted mainly of local customs, sometimes officially compiled in "custumals" (coutumes), notably the Custom of Paris. There were also exemptions, privileges, and special charters granted by kings or other feudal lords. With the Revolution, the last vestiges of feudalism were abolished.
Specifically, as to civil law, the many different bodies of law used in different parts of France were to be replaced by a single legal code.
Napoleonic reforms
After these commissions had rejected multiple constitutional drafts, Napoleon came to power in 1799 and set out to reform the confusing and contradictory French feudal and monarchic legal system in accordance with the ideals of the French Revolution. A commission of four eminent jurists was appointed in 1800. The Code was complete by 1801, after intensive scrutiny by the Council of State, but was not published until 21 March 1804. It was promulgated as the "Civil Code of the French", but was renamed "the Napoleonic Code" from 1807 to 1815, and once again after the Second French Empire.
The process developed mainly out of the various customs, but was inspired by Justinian's sixth-century codification of Roman law, the Corpus Iuris Civilis and, within that, Justinian's Code (Codex). The Napoleonic Code, however, differed from Justinian's in important ways:
it incorporated all kinds of earlier rules, not just legislation;
it was not a collection of edited extracts, but a comprehensive rewrite;
its structure was much more rational;
it had no religious content
it was written in the vernacular.
The Napoleonic Code marked a fundamental change in the nature of the civil law legal system, making laws clearer and more accessible. It also superseded the former conflict between royal legislative power and, particularly in the final years before the Revolution, protests by judges representing views and privileges of the social classes to which they belonged. Such conflict led the Revolutionaries to take a negative view of judges making law.
This is reflected in the Napoleonic Code provision prohibiting judges from deciding a case by way of introducing a general rule, since the creation of general rules is an exercise of legislative and not of judicial power.
Louisiana
In the United States, the legal system is largely based on English common law. But the state of Louisiana is unique in having a strong influence from French and Spanish legal traditions on its civil code. Spanish and French colonial forces quarreled over Louisiana during most of the 1700s, with Spain ultimately ceding the territory to France in 1800, which in turn sold the territory to the United States in 1803. The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution grants states control of laws not specifically given to the Federal government, so Louisiana's legal system retains many French elements. Examples of the practical legal differences between Louisiana and the other states include the bar exam and legal standards of practice for attorneys in Louisiana being significantly different from other states; Louisiana is the only American state to practice forced inheritance of an estate; also, some of Louisiana's laws clash with the Uniform Commercial Code practiced by the other 49 states.
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code
---------------------------------------------------------
On This Day: Einstein publishes "the most beautiful of all existing physical theories" - Mar. 20, 1916
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374627
On This Day: Governor signs bill legalizing gambling in Nevada - March 19, 1931
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374572
On This Day: Caligula comes to power, issues in popular reforms - March 18, 37
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374524
On This Day: Burst of Joy photo symbolizes release of POWs from North Vietnam - Mar. 17, 1973
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374479
On This Day: Plane on secret war mission disappears with no trace - Mar. 16, 1962
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016374414
On This Day: A step forward from feudalism, a devastating step back for women and slavery - Mar. 21, 1804
(edited from article)
"
Napoleonic Code approved in France - March 21, 1804
After four years of debate and planning, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte enacts a new legal framework for France, known as the “Napoleonic Code.” The civil code gave post-revolutionary France its first coherent set of laws concerning property, colonial affairs, the family and individual rights.
In 1804, General Napoleon Bonaparte, as the new emperor of France, began the arduous task of revising France’s outdated and muddled legal system. He established a special commission, led by J.J. Cambaceres, which met more than 80 times to discuss the revolutionary legal revisions, and Napoleon presided over nearly half of these sessions. In March 1804, the Napoleonic Code was finally approved.
It codified several branches of law, including commercial and criminal law, and divided civil law into categories of property and family. The Napoleonic Code made the authority of men over their families stronger, deprived women of any individual rights, and reduced the rights of illegitimate children. All male citizens were also granted equal rights under the law and the right to religious dissent, but colonial slavery was reintroduced. The laws were applied to all territories under Napoleon’s control and were influential in several other European countries and in South America.
"
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/napoleonic-code-approved-in-france
(edited from article)
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The Napoleonic Code: Property, Succession, and Gender
Deanna Small
University of Minnesota - Morris
July 2022
The Code seemed to quickly turn away from gains women had made. There was a period of time born out of the French Revolution known as “intermediary law” from 1789-1804 which codified several civil liberties and extended them to women. This period of time marked the end of the Ancien Regime and the beginning of a modern legal system. During this time, the intermediary laws included civil marriage, lowering the age of majority to 21 instead of 25, and equal treatment under the law in cases of adultery. In effect, by 1792 the legislation passed had
curtailed the power of husbands and fathers. During the intermediary law period widows gained new authority as the heads of households, but by the Napoleonic Code the system shifted once again. Their authority was gone as the legal system structured itself around an all-powerful male in the family. Their rapidly changing legal status left French women, particularly widows, in precarious and unsettled positions.
The new role of women in France was a part of the Code’s vision for the country. The Napoleonic Code was carefully constructed by Napoleon and its writers to make a legal framework that worked in a market society based on property ownership. It also reinstated patriarchal power in the family. However the new system went farther than simply undoing the legal work of the revolutionary and intermediary period. Women were placed under the complete authority of their husbands. The lack of legal rights for women, unmarried women and their children in particular, was uniquely severe compared to other legal systems. These unmarried women and their children were unable to appeal for compensation or living allowance from the fathers or to take the father to court to receive such things.
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https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1109&context=horizons
(edited from article)
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The French Man Who Signed Slavery Back Into Law : Notes on Napoleon
There’s much wrong with the world as we approach the 252nd birthday of Napoleon Bonaparte. But it is a hopeful sign that there’s more attention these days to his sin of legalizing the crime of slavery.
Kerry Dooley Young
Aug 14, 2021
Napoleon holds a unique and awful record. He made France the only nation in history to make enslaving other humans legal after already having already abolished this crime.
Think about that for a minute. In 1802, Napoleon signed a law that made slavery legal again.
France outlawed slavery in 1794. That victory was the result of years of lobbying by advocates for freedom, who were opposed by people who had profited off the misery and pain of those enslaved in French colonies like Saint-Domingue, which became Haiti.
Napoleon thus condemned about 300,000 people to years of life in bondage, according to an article on the DW.com, the English language site of Deutsche Welle. France did not definitively abolished slavery until 1848, about 27 years after Napoleon’s death.
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https://dooleyyoung.medium.com/the-french-man-who-signed-slavery-back-into-law-notes-on-napoleon-70d59889e1a4
(edited from Wikipedia)
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Napoleonic Code
The Napoleonic Code, officially the Civil Code of the French, is the French civil code established during the French Consulate period in 1804 and still in force in France, although heavily and frequently amended since its inception.
Napoleon himself was not involved in the drafting of the Code, as it was drafted by a commission of four eminent jurists and entered into force on 21 March 1804. The code, with its stress on clearly written and accessible law, was a major milestone in the abolition of the previous patchwork of feudal laws. Historian Robert Holtman regards it as one of the few documents that have influenced the whole world. The Napoleonic Code is often portrayed to be one of the most widespread system of law in the world, claimed to be in force in various forms in about 120 countries, but many of those countries are civil code countries that had their own version of their civil code for centuries.
The Napoleonic Code was not the first legal code to be established in a European country with a civil-law legal system; it was preceded by the Codex Maximilianeus bavaricus civilis (Bavaria, 1756), the Allgemeines Landrecht (Prussia, 1794), and the West Galician Code (Galicia, then part of Austria, 1797). It was, however, the first modern legal code to be adopted with a pan-European scope, and it strongly influenced the law of many of the countries formed during and after the Napoleonic Wars. The Napoleonic Code influenced developing countries outside Europe attempting to modernize and defeudalize their countries through legal reforms, such as those in the Middle East, while in Latin America the Spanish and Portuguese had established their own versions of the civil code.
History
The categories of the Napoleonic Code were not drawn from earlier French law, but instead from Justinian's sixth-century codification of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, and within it, the Institutes. The Institutes divide into the law of:
persons
things
actions.
Similarly, the Napoleonic Code divided the law into four sections:
persons
property
acquisition of property
civil procedure (moved into a separate code in 1806).
Prior codification attempts
Before the Napoleonic Code, France did not have a single set of laws; law consisted mainly of local customs, sometimes officially compiled in "custumals" (coutumes), notably the Custom of Paris. There were also exemptions, privileges, and special charters granted by kings or other feudal lords. With the Revolution, the last vestiges of feudalism were abolished.
Specifically, as to civil law, the many different bodies of law used in different parts of France were to be replaced by a single legal code.
Napoleonic reforms
After these commissions had rejected multiple constitutional drafts, Napoleon came to power in 1799 and set out to reform the confusing and contradictory French feudal and monarchic legal system in accordance with the ideals of the French Revolution. A commission of four eminent jurists was appointed in 1800. The Code was complete by 1801, after intensive scrutiny by the Council of State, but was not published until 21 March 1804. It was promulgated as the "Civil Code of the French", but was renamed "the Napoleonic Code" from 1807 to 1815, and once again after the Second French Empire.
The process developed mainly out of the various customs, but was inspired by Justinian's sixth-century codification of Roman law, the Corpus Iuris Civilis and, within that, Justinian's Code (Codex). The Napoleonic Code, however, differed from Justinian's in important ways:
it incorporated all kinds of earlier rules, not just legislation;
it was not a collection of edited extracts, but a comprehensive rewrite;
its structure was much more rational;
it had no religious content
it was written in the vernacular.
The Napoleonic Code marked a fundamental change in the nature of the civil law legal system, making laws clearer and more accessible. It also superseded the former conflict between royal legislative power and, particularly in the final years before the Revolution, protests by judges representing views and privileges of the social classes to which they belonged. Such conflict led the Revolutionaries to take a negative view of judges making law.
This is reflected in the Napoleonic Code provision prohibiting judges from deciding a case by way of introducing a general rule, since the creation of general rules is an exercise of legislative and not of judicial power.
Louisiana
In the United States, the legal system is largely based on English common law. But the state of Louisiana is unique in having a strong influence from French and Spanish legal traditions on its civil code. Spanish and French colonial forces quarreled over Louisiana during most of the 1700s, with Spain ultimately ceding the territory to France in 1800, which in turn sold the territory to the United States in 1803. The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution grants states control of laws not specifically given to the Federal government, so Louisiana's legal system retains many French elements. Examples of the practical legal differences between Louisiana and the other states include the bar exam and legal standards of practice for attorneys in Louisiana being significantly different from other states; Louisiana is the only American state to practice forced inheritance of an estate; also, some of Louisiana's laws clash with the Uniform Commercial Code practiced by the other 49 states.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code
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