In August 1945, about 500 Manhattan Project alumni founded the Association of Los Alamos Scientists to educate the public about nuclear energy.
They stressed the first syllable of the acronym.
History
The End of the Road
The following anagram on the original name of Napoleon I, the most renowned conqueror of the age in which he lived, may claim a place among the first productions of this class, and fully shows in the transposition, the character of that extraordinary man, and points out that unfortunate occurrence of his life which ultimately proved his ruin. Thus: ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’ contains ‘No, appear not on Elba.’
— Kazlitt Arvine, Cyclopaedia of Anecdotes of Literature and the Fine Arts, 1856
A King’s Homework
When Edward VI succeeded to the throne at age 9, William Thomas, clerk of the council, set him 85 questions on history and policy to answer at his leisure. “For though these be but questions, yet there is not so small an one among them, as will not administer matter of much discourse, worthy the argument and debating.” Samples:
- Whether it is better for the commonwealth, that the power be in the nobility or in the people?
- How easily a weak prince with good order may long be maintained, and how soon a mighty prince with little disorder may be destroyed?
- What is the occasion of conspiracies?
- Whether the people commonly desire the destruction of him that is in authority, and what moveth them so to do?
- How flatterers are to be known and despised?
- How dangerous it is to be author of a new matter?
- Whether evil report lighteth not most commonly upon the reporter?
- Whether a puissant prince ought to purchase amity with money, or with virtue and stoutness?
- What is the cause of war?
- Whether the country ought not always to be defended, the quarrel being right or wrong?
- What danger it is to a prince, not to be revenged of an open injury?
- Whether it be not necessary sometimes to feign folly?
Thomas closes by suggesting that Edward keep the questions to himself, since it is better “to keep the principal things of wisdom secret, till occasion require the utterance.”
Communiqué
One day the elderly soldier [Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington] chanced on a small boy weeping bitterly and on asking the cause the child began to explain that he was going away to school next day … not waiting to hear more the Duke read him a severe lecture on his attitude, which was cowardly, unworthy of a gentleman and not at all the way to behave, etc. At last the little boy managed to explain he was not crying because he was going to school, but he was worried about his pet toad, as no one else seemed to care for it and he wouldn’t know how it was. The Duke, a just man, apologized to the child for having wronged him, and being human as well as just, took down the particulars and promised to report himself about this pet. In due course the little boy at school received a letter saying ‘Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington presents his compliments to Master —– and has the pleasure to inform him that his toad is well.’
— G.W.E. Russell, Collections and Recollections, 1963
Unquote
“One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.” — Will Durant
Brothers in Arms
After the First Battle of Manassas, a reporter for the Richmond Dispatch discovered a Confederate soldier tending to a wounded Union infantryman.
“Yes, sir, he is my brother Henry,” he said. “The same mother bore us, the same mother nursed us. We met for the first time in four years. I belong to the Washington Artillery, from New Orleans–he to the First Minnesota Infantry. By the merest chance I learned he was here wounded, and sought him out to nurse and attend to him.”
“Thus they met,” the reporter wrote, “one from the far North, the other from the extreme South–on a bloody field in Virginia, in a miserable stable, far away from their mother, home and friends, both wounded–the infantry man by a musket ball in the right shoulder, the artillery man by the wheel of a caisson over his left hand. Their names are Frederick Hubbard, Washington Artillery, and Henry Hubbard, First Minnesota Infantry.”
Perspective
“The sound of Niagara Falls outdates our most cherished antiquities.” — J.O. Urmson
Cold War
In 1809, the Spanish town of Huéscar declared war on Denmark during the Napoleonic wars over Spain.
The war was forgotten until 1981, when a local historian discovered the declaration.
In 172 years of warfare, not a single person had been killed or injured.
A Shy Pen
Button Gwinnett was a relatively obscure member of the Continental Congress when he signed the Declaration of Independence in August 1776. Nine months later he was killed in a duel.
That makes his signature one of the most valuable in the world, comparable to those of Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare. Only 51 examples exist. This January it was discovered that he’d signed a Wolverhampton marriage register in 1757, five years before departing England for America. That autograph was valued at £500,000.
Stormy Seas
On Oct. 25, 1944, during battle in the Philippine Sea, Chester Nimitz sent this message to William Halsey, asking for his location:
TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS
The language before GG and after RR is nonsense added to discourage cryptanalysis. Unfortunately, Halsey’s radio officer neglected to remove the trailing phrase, and Halsey read:
Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four? The world wonders.
“I was stunned as if I had been struck in the face,” Halsey wrote later. “The paper rattled in my hands, I snatched off my cap, threw it on the deck, and shouted something I am ashamed to remember.” Furious at Nimitz’ “gratuitous insult,” he delayed an hour before rejoining the battle. He learned the truth only weeks later.
(Thanks, Ankit.)