Tag: mark loves history

A Theft for Honor?


Today in History, August 21: 1911 – On the 22nd, French painter Louis Beroud carries his easel into the Louvre and sets it up in front of The Mona Lisa, preparing to paint her. But when he looks up he sees only a blank wall where she should be. He notifies the museum’s guards, who thought she was being photographed elsewhere. They soon found that not to be true and the investigation began. 

 Several people were questioned, including Pablo Picasso. Many believed Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece was gone forever. 

 Then, two years after the theft, former Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia, attempted to sell the painting to a museum in Florence, Italy and was arrested. He had hidden in the museum during business hours, and then smuggled Mona Lisa out under his coat. 

Peruggia was an Italian nationalist who believed The Mona Lisa should be displayed in Leonardo’s home country. She was displayed around Italy, then returned to the Louvre. Peruggia served less than a year in jail and was released, hailed as a hero by many Italians.

Acadian Migration


Today in History, August 10: 1755 – Upon the orders of Nova Scotia Governor Charles Lawrence, British soldiers begin the process of forcibly expelling French Acadians, French settlers that refused to submit to British rule in Canada, into the 13 Colonies of the Americas. Many of them would settle in what is now Louisiana. Some would attempt to return to Canada eventually, but their lands had been given to British Tories that had been relocated after the Revolutionary War, so they had to settle elsewhere. Nonetheless…We now have CAJUNS thanks to the British actions of the 18th century. 

Damn the Torpedoes!


Today in History, August 5: 1864 – “Damn the Torpedoes! Full Speed Ahead!” New Orleans had been captured from the Confederacy in 1862, leaving Mobile Bay as the only source of foreign supplies for the South, via blockade runners (like the fictional Rhett Butler). On this date the Union Navy sent a fleet of ships led by ironclads into Mobile Bay, fighting a squadron of Confederate Ships and two “batteries” or forts with cannon, and a withering fire that almost immediately sank the USS Tecumseh, an ironclad. The Union fleet began to scatter, until the US Navy’s first Rear Admiral, David Glasgow Farragut inspired them on to victory with his now historic courageous command. By the way, “torpedoes” in 1864 were not propelled explosives as we know of them today, but what we know as mines. This would not be the only battle that would lead to Farragut’s lasting legacy with the US Navy.

Today in History, April 11: 1803 – Instrumental in establishing the US Patent system, John Stevens receives a patent for the first screw driven, steam powered boat, or steamboat. The son of a member of the Continental Congress, A Captain and later Colonel in the Continental Army, Stevens turned his talents to inventions after the war. Robert Fulton would win the most fame for the steamship, but it was Stevens who first tied steam power to propeller driven naval craft. He would be best known as the father of the American railroad for steam powered railroad engines. Not nearly as famous as George Washington, or other American heroes…but how much more impact did Stevens have on the world with his inventions? He and his contemporaries took us from a world of sail to paddle wheeled steamships, to ironclads, to battleships, liners, supertankers, and more.