Tate’s Invasion occurred in 1797. The French force, led by Colonel William Tate, was the last time a foreign force landed on British soil. The French force ultimately surrendered to British forces but the invasion led to the suspended conversion of banknotes issued by the Bank of England into gold.

In order to issue some sort of value for the notes the bank commissioned a prominent gun manufacturer, Matthew Boulton, to produce copper pennies. He received the contract because his facility was the only one able to produce to coinage in the amounts the bank needed. To gain the public’s trust in the new coins the government issued them as payment to members of the army and navy. This served to bind the England’s economy to their ongoing war efforts.

The Gordon Riots of 1780 began when Lord Gordon, head of the Protestant Association, led Londoners on an anti-Catholic protest that turned violent and became widespread rioting. Gun makers, in an attempt to keep firearms out of the rioters hands, sent their weapons to the Tower of London.

The Tower was the headquarters of the Ordnance Office, a government body in charge of small arms production. They would receive requests for weapons from recognized purchasers, make contracts with the various parts manufacturers, and deliver the weapons, stamped, in order to account for their distribution.

The influx of weapons sent over during the Gordon Riots filled the armory in the Tower of London. When the Ordnance Office was offered an additional five thousand guns from a foreign manufacturer a few months later they realized they had a problem on their hands: Should they purchase these weapons in order to keep them out of unwanted hands? If they did, would the English manufacturers take issue with the purchase and themselves arm opposing forces?

One solution was to open up additional warehouses. The Ordnance Office refused to follow through with this plan and instead shut down all orders, straining their relationship with gun manufacturers who so recently had shown their willingness to support the Office during the riots. The gun manufacturers had no choice but to wait until the Office decided they needed more weapons since their contracts with the government offered the most sure path to wealth.

The supply of firearms was a constant struggle in the infancy of gun manufacture. Before a standardized weapon was introduced most firearms were made according to the purchaser’s specifications. This led to production issues and concerns that gun manufacturers could equip enemy soldiers. Everything changed with the introduction of the “Brown Bess,” the official musket used by the British Army. The musket was a flintlock musket and could be fired at a rate of 3 rounds/minute, depending on the skill of the user.

Each individual part, from the barrel to the butt, had specific requirements which led to manufacture being the assembly of the various components. This served two purposes. One, the weapons could be replaced and repaired much more effectively and two, it took control of firearms away from individual producers. By splitting up the manufacture of parts the British government could be sure that there wouldn’t be any production funnels when they needed more weapons. For a nation who saw the majority of the 1700’s at war this was a gamechanger.

Rudyard Kipling wrote about the Brown Bess in his poem of the same name:

In the days of lace-ruffles, perukes, and brocade

Brown Bess was a partner whom none could despise -

An out-spoken, flinty-lipped, brazen-faced jade,

With a habit of looking men straight in the eyes -

At Blenheim and Ramillies, fops would confess

They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.

— Rudyard Kipling, "Brown Bess," 1911

This description of the nature of conversation between two people is too wonderful not to share. Maria Popova wrote it as an introduction to her essay Telling Is Listening: Ursula K. Le Guin on the Magic of Real Human Conversation. I enjoyed the quotes from Le Guin but this was my favorite passage of the entire essay:

“Every act of communication is an act of tremendous courage in which we give ourselves over to two parallel possibilities: the possibility of planting into another mind a seed sprouted in ours and watching it blossom into a breathtaking flower of mutual understanding; and the possibility of being wholly misunderstood, reduced to a withering weed. Candor and clarity go a long way in fertilizing the soil, but in the end there is always a degree of unpredictability in the climate of communication — even the warmest intention can be met with frost. Yet something impels us to hold these possibilities in both hands and go on surrendering to the beauty and terror of conversation, that ancient and abiding human gift. And the most magical thing, the most sacred thing, is that whichever the outcome, we end up having transformed one another in this vulnerable-making process of speaking and listening.”

In 1912, the Theodore Roosevelt was running for his third term in office (though it would only be the second he was elected into after his first began with the assassination of President McKinley). He had split from the Republican Party and created his own Progressive Party after sitting President Taft had received the Republican Party’s nomination.

While on his way to a speech in Milwaukee Roosevelt was shot by John Schrank. The bullet deflected off his glasses case and a copy of his speech before it lodged in his chest. Instead of going to a hospital, Roosevelt insisted on giving his speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He addressed the situation as soon as he got on stage but insisted it would take more than a gunshot to stop a “Bull Moose.” His speech lasted a full 90 minutes before he allowed himself to receive medical attention. The bullet would remain lodged in his chest for the rest of the ex-President’s life. Because of the opening lines of his speech the Progressive Party was nicknamed the “Bull Moose” Party.

Roosevelt would go on to take second place in the presidential election of 1912, behind Woodrow Wilson but ahead of Taft. It is remarkable that his party was able to receive more votes than one of the nation’s two parties through Roosevelt's efforts on the stump and the sheer force of his personality. Four years later, Roosevelt declined the Progressive Party’s nomination in the 1916 presidential race. This led to a large portion of the Progressive Party to rejoin either the Republican or Democratic Party. By 1918 the “Bull Moose” Party ceased to exist without the charismatic voice of their former leader.

Over one million people descend on the Potomac each year to attend the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The trees, not native to the nations capital, were imported by former first lady Helen “Nellie” Taft.

Inspired by her time in the Phillipines, First Lady Taft wanted to create a river park for the public to enjoy. The decision was made to line the Potomac River with Oriental cherry trees. The project was made public and word reached the Japanese government who subsequently offered to donate 2000 trees in the name of Tokyo. This donation reached the United  States and to everyone's dismay was found to be infested. Each and every tree had to be burned.

The Mayor of Tokyo sent over an another 3000 trees. These are the specimens that people descend on D.C. to see bloom each year. The first tree was planted together by First Lady Taft and the wife of the Japanese Ambassador in a ceremony that served to strengthen ties between the two nations.

Abstract is a show on Netflix about the art of design. Each episode focuses on one designer in a specific field. The first episode is about an illustrator who has designed covers for the New Yorker, the second about a shoe designer who was an integral part of Nike’s Jordan brand, the third about a set designer who has worked with everyone from Beyonce to Louis Vutton, and the fourth, which I just finished, is about a Danish Architect by the name of Bjarke Ingels.

Each year the Serpentine Gallery, one of two art galleries in London’s Hyde Park, selects one leading architect to design their summer attraction. This episode highlights the journey of his team as they create the temporary summer pavilion. Admission is free and the selection comes with a large degree of prestige. Ingels' group is given a mere 6 months to design and construct the pavilion, a task that unfolds throughout the episode.

Abstract is definitely worth the look even if it’s just to appreciate the creative work different types of designers undertake each and every day.

Samuel Galton, a prominent gun manufacturer, lived in Birmingham, England. The contradiction between his member in the Quaker community and his profession is investigated by Priya Satia in her new book Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution.

One of the hallmarks of the Quaker faith is the refusal to participate in war. When the church brought the issue up with Galton in 1795 his response was that the entire economy of England, who had been in a state of war for decades, contributed to the war, regardless of the industry. The leaders of the religious group didn’t agree and Galton was ousted from their ranks.

“What if we’ve all missed the big story about the Industrial Revolution? That so much of it was driven by war, to the extent that it would be hard to be a person of industry without being involved in war?” Satia says. This book has already been added to my audio queue and I look forward to hearing more about how the Industrial Revolution was driven by warfare and gun manufacture.

A trust was a term used around the beginning of the 1900’s for a group of companies that, when combined, took control of the market. In 1890 the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed to prevent their formation but for years, and across multiple industries, it hadn’t been effective in controlling the formation of trusts. Teddy Roosevelt, in his first term in office, believed trusts harming the public should be broken up and he believed himself to be the man to do it.

Two large trusts he set his eyes on were the Northern Securites Company, a collection of railroad companies that worked together to eliminate competition, and the “Beef Trust”, companies who worked together to fix the prices of meat to the detriment of the public. Roosevelt’s first task was to use the power of the press to get congress to approve the Department of Commerce and Labor. The job of this department was to monitor anti-competitive practices across state lines. A year later the Supreme Court dissolved the Northern Securites Company and, soon after, the Beef Trust. These cases set the precedent for the breakup of future companies, also under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

At the end of 1989, less than a year before he died, Sammy Davis Jr. was pulled onstage by Gregory Hines at Davis’ 60^th anniversary celebration. His hip had been replaced less than five years earlier and he was undergoing treatment for throat cancer which left him unable to speak. Both Davis and Hines starred in the 1989 movie Tap and Hines had just finished his routine on stage when he approached Davis, helped him put his tap shoes on, and stood out of the elderly entertainers way. Watch the video and see for yourself how, in the distance between his chair and the stage, Davis transforms from a frail old man to an entertainer. His legs are thin in his pants and he is noticeably frail but he dances so well that at the end of the video Hines bends down to kiss the dying man’s shoes.

In Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell uses this celebration of Davis to illustrate how the entertainer paved the way for black entertainers in America. Gladwell talks about how Sammy Davis Jr. was the first entertainer to break into a white-dominated industry and had to make sacrifices in order to succeed. Sacrifices like urging his body to dance onstage while managing to make another tap-dancing legend seem ordinary.