We all learned in school that World War One was initiated because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (pictured above) but it very well have been because of an wrong turn by his limo driver, Leopold Lojka.

The Archduke was in Sarajevo, Bosnia and, earlier in the day, had a bomb tossed at his car by a would be assassin. The bomb exploded after his car had passed and injured others behind them in another car. The Archduke and his wife Sophie took a brief rest and then insisted on going out to visit at a local hospital those injured in the blast because, why not?

Hopping in his car, a open-roofed Double Phaeton limousine, the line of cars sped off to the hospital. Only no one told the drivers where they were going. Finding out they were going in the wrong direction the convoy of cars stalls and tries to turn around in the narrow street.

In the meantime, in a cafe on the very same street, Gavrilo Princip is munching away on some Bosnian food (probably bosanki lonac, the national dish of Bosnia) and angrily muttering to himself on the failed earlier attempt on the Archdukes life.

Glancing out of the window, he sees the stalled limo and rushes out and promptly shoots Sophie in the stomach and Ferdinand in the neck. Sophie, seeing the blood coming out of her husbands mouth exclaims, ““For Heaven’s sake! What happened to you?” and promptly falls into her husband’s lap. The Archduke, cries out to his wife. “Sophie dear! Don’t die! Stay alive for our children!” and then slumps down into his seat. His feathered cap slips off his head sending green feathers throughout the car.

Both would die in transit back to the Townhall which they had started from.

Princip would be tried for the murder of the Archduke and his wife and would die four years later from tuberculosis. Another 40 million people would later die in World War One.

The Sixth President of the United States of America, John Quincy Adams, was the son of a President. Generally quiet he was seized by bouts of depression. He married Louisa Catherine Johnson who was frail and sickly.

To bolster his health and spirit, each morning he would trot down to the Potomac River, strip naked and wade into the usually cold waters leaving his clothes on the bank.

He wasn’t entirely naked though. Stratford Canning, the British Ambassador to Washington noted in 1821:

“The Secretary of State was seen one morning at an early hour floating down the Potomac, with a black cap on his head and a pair of green goggles on his eyes.”

His wife and doctor tried to talk him out of it but he persisted, frequently swimming further out and for longer times which saw him swimming against the strong tides and leaving him weary. He wrote:

“… the remonstrances of my friends against the continuance of this practice will induce me to abandon it, perhaps altogether.”

In 1825 he headed out with his valet, Antoine, accompanying him in a canoe to try and swim across the river.

“I jumped overboard, and Antoine did the same, and lost hold of the boat, which filled with water and drifted away. We were as near as possible to the middle of the river, and swam to the opposite shore. Antoine, who was naked, reached it with little difficulty. I had much more, and while struggling for life and gasping for breath, had ample leisure to reflect upon my own discretion. My principal difficulty was in the loose sleeves of my shirt, which filled with water and hung like two fifty-six pound weights upon my arms.

Despite almost drowning, he did not stop. Again in 1825 he experienced an entirely new kind of river adventure:

I walked as usual to my ordinary bathing-place, and came to the rock where I leave my clothes a few minutes before sunrise. I found several persons there, besides three or four who were bathing; and at the shore under the tree a boat with four men in it, and a drag-net. … I enquired if any one had been drowned, and the man told me it was old Mr. Shoemaker, a clerk in the post-office, a man upwards of sixty years of age, who last evening, between five and six o’clock, went in to bathe with four other persons; that he was drowned in full sight of them, and without a suspicion by them that he was even in danger. They had observed him struggling in the water, but, as he was an excellent swimmer, had supposed he was merely diving, until after coming out they found he was missing. They then commenced an ineffectual search for him, which was continued late into the night. The man said to me that he had never seen a more distressed person than Mrs. Shoemaker last evening. … I stripped and went into the river. I had not been more than ten minutes swimming, when the drag-boat started, and they were not five minutes from the shore when the body floated immediately opposite the rock, less than one hundred yards from the shore, at the very edge of the channel, and where there could not be seven feet deep of water. I returned immediately to the shore and dressed.

Death and almost drowning would have stopped most but the worst was yet to come.

After many attempts to be granted an interview with the President, news reporter Anne Royall hid in the bushes watching the president strip naked and frolic in the water. Seeing an opportunity she scooped up his clothes and held them ransom until he agreed to do an interview.

The interview went well and Anne kept his secret as they agreed but he was soon found out by other members of the press. Despite the embarrassment John Quincy would continue to swim in the Potomac every chance he had until his death at age 80 in 1848. His last words were “This is the last of Earth. I am content!“.

Anne was one of America’s first newspaperwomen and was known in Washington as an eccentric who never held her tongue when given the chance to aie her often controversial views.. John Quincy Adams would later call her a “virago errant in enchanted armor”.

As a beginning collector I have not paid much attention to postmarks but I recently bought a stamp album with some interesting material and noticed these postcards were postmarked on U.S.Navy Ships. I will try and store and index them here by ship name.

The Wyandot was a U.S. Navy Andromeda Class Cargo Ship. Keel was laid May 6th, 1944. It was launched June 28th, 1944.

This postcard is postmarked January 2nd 1958 although the 58 is partially missing. I think it is a Locy Type 2(n). The cachet reads:

USS Wyandot
Deep Freeze I, II & III
1956 – 1957 – 1958

It is addressed to Alfred H. Dowle of Downers Grove, Illinois

Alfred H. Dowle, USCS H-1609 (1995). Was the national president of the Naval Covers Collectors Society from 1959 to 1961. He provided significant support for the Society in the midwest. Editor of the USCS LOG for several years, and part of the committee that assumed responsibility for the Catalog of United States Naval Postmarks when the USCS took over the task of its publication. For many years he wrote a regular column in the LOG providing historical information.

The back provides this information:

J.D. Williams, Naval Postal Clerk, El Paso, Illinois

and there is a handstamp, in blue, for Elwood E. Ellis, Universal Ship Cancellation Society Number 1799.

On the bottom, in pencil, are further notations 15h-92 10/11 190

In the spring of 1955, Wyandot joined Task Force 43 for “Operation Deep Freeze I” in the Antarctic. After a brief yard availability, the ship loaded supplies and equipment at Davisville, Rhode Island, and shifted to Norfolk, from whence she departed on 14 November. Sailing via the Panama Canal and Lyttelton, New Zealand, Wyandot arrived at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, on 27 December. While in those cold southern latitudes, she served as the flagship for Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, officer-in-charge of the Antarctic programs.

She was then assigned to “Operation Deep Freeze II” in 1956. Wyandot rendezvoused with Staten Island (AGB-5) near the Panama Canal Zone before both continued on for Antarctica, arriving on 15 December at the Weddell Sea pack ice and then breaking through the Antarctic Circle on 20 December en route to Cape Adams. In 1957 Staten Island led Wyandot from Cape Adams to Gould Bay where Ellsworth Station was then assembled. Subsequently, the Wyandot returned home and operated with the Atlantic Fleet into the late 1950s.

As anyone who follows this website knows (and I am not sure if anyone does) I don’t have a lot of stamps or a lot of money to spend on them.

But items have more to offer than simply value. It isn’t about how much a stamp is worth. It is about the history and stories behind the stamps or items. The value comes from how much you choose to gain from it. That applies to everything in life, doesn’t it?

Which brings me to this item I recently picked up.

This appears to be a “wrapper”. Usually a wrapper is used to ship a newspaper or periodical. It usually comes with a pre-printed stamp. This wrapper includes the following information:

From:

Manora-Sternwarte
Lussinpiccolo (Istrien)

To:

An den Harrn Varstand der Bibliothek der Universitaet
Brussel, Belg.

The seller had written the date (I assume from the cancellation) as 1890 and the 1kr stamp was issued in 1890. The date on the 2 postmarks are hard to read but I think the actual date is later.

After a deep dive, here is what I think it actually is:

Spiridion Gopčević was born in Trieste (Italy) on July 9th 1855. His father Spiridion was a wealthy ship owner in Trieste and their home was situated in the central part of Trieste called Grand Canal (Canal Grande). When Spiridion was just six years old his father committed suicide because of an economical breakdown, and his mother sent him to Vienna to continiue his studies. After his mother’s death, he left University and started a very successful but controversial career as a journalist. At one point he ends up jailed because of his anti-government writings.

Gopčević marries into a rich Austrian noble family and succeeds in getting funds from the Austrian Government for his next venture. He and his wife settle in Lussinpiccolo (now Mali Lošinj, Croatia) on September 18th 1893. and starts building his Observatory “Manora” (named after his wife). For some unknown reason Gopčević takes his “astronomy name” Leo Brenner and starts his career as an astronomer.

Outfitted with a small refractor telescope with a 3 1/4-inch lens. Fascinated by the wonders of the starry sky, Brenner, over the next five years would spend nearly 3,000 hours at the eyepiece and make nearly 2,000 drawings.

Some of his observations have been applauded. Most have not.

In 1975 Larry Krumenaker of New York University analyzed 21 of Brenner’s Mercury drawings, concluding that at least some of the features he recorded correspond to those shown in Mariner 10 imagery. One striking characteristic in Brenner’s Mercury drawings is the depiction of bright polar caps.

These observations are supported by more recent ones by the French astronomer Audouin Dollfus, who defocused images of Mercury taken by Mariner 10 in the early 1970s – to simulate ground-based telescopic views – and discovered that the planet’s heavily cratered polar regions would indeed appear bright visually.

Brenner thought he saw oceans through holes in the Venus’s dense cloud cover. His drawings show dark features aligned symmetrically about the planet’s equator, resembling the C-, X-, and Y-shaped cloud formations recorded in ultraviolet light by the Pioneer Venus orbiter in 1979. The bright polar caps in Brenner’s drawings have also been confirmed by the spacecraft’s imaging, though they are clouds, not snow as he believed.

Brenner often saw the prolonged horns of Venus when the planet was at quarter phase or more. This strange phenomenon was also seen in 1986 by German amateurs. They thought they had found something new until they learned of Brenner’s observations nearly 100 years earlier.

Brenner believed that Martian canals could have been the work of a past civilization. His map of the red planet shows a maze of canals, 72 of which were discovered at Manora Observatory.

by late 1894 Gopcevic was publishing papers on his observations of the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn and he became known in the world of astronomy. His articles and observations were published in the best astronomy journals at the time, and he corresponded with the greatest astronomers of that time. Attempting to  maintain his reputation, he began to boost his observations with extravagant claims concerning his Mars observations that could not be proved. With that, his reputation began to slide and his articles would no longer be published.

In 1899 he began to publish his own journal called “Astronomische Rundschau” (Astronomical Overview) which ran until 1909. During the eleven years of the journal’s existence, “he filled it with his astronomical essays, his incessant and vituperative polemics, papers by other astronomers”, and he assumed professional titles that were untrue. In its final March 1909 issue, Brenner revealed to his readers that he was a Count (which apparently he was not) and that he had decided to forsake astronomy.

Having lost his reputation as an astronomer, he left behind the field of astronomy, his wife and the city of Lussinpiccolo in 1909 and moved to San Francisco, California, U.S.A. where he wrote music. In 1912, he wrote the lyrics for two operas, “The Paris September Days” and “The Life Saver”. His musical endeavors had little success, so he returned to writing on political themes.

Just before the start of World War I, Gopcevic returned to Europe and worked as editor on an army journal in Berlin where he wrote pamphlets on the theme of the reunification of all South-Slav nationalities under the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He wrote his last paper in 1922 on the subject of Atlantis and Lemuria. The date most frequently shown as his date of death is 1928, but there are two other dates also mentioned. One of them comes with the claim that “he fell into anonymity and died in Berlin in 1936”.

I believe this is one of the wrappers used to send Astronomische Rundschau out to the University library in Brussels, Belgium and the date is probably not 1890 but 1899. The imprinted postage was not enough so a 1 kr. SC#51 (issued in 1890) was also affixed but since Astronomische Rundschau ran from 1899 to 1909 (103 issues) it could not be postmarked earlier than that so probably 1899.

Update: Since writing this I found a number of scans of wrappers housed in a museum in Croatia.

Today he has relatively unknown but there is a crater on the moon named Brenner in his honor.

New Years around the world. A happy day full of ambition and dreams for the New Year. A fresh start to do better, be better and make positive changes in our lives. A stamp collector might wish, for example, to organize the piles of stamps they have accumulated or perhaps to share unwanted stamps with others. Others may promise to stop buying until they sort through what they have…. nevermind, that’s just silly.

The celebration of New Year’s Day dates back to ancient times and has been observed in various ways and on different dates throughout history.

The earliest known record of New Year’s celebrations dates back to ancient Babylon, around 4,000 years ago. The Babylonians celebrated the New Year on the first new moon after the spring equinox, which usually fell in late March.

The ancient Egyptians also celebrated the New Year in the spring, around the time of the annual flooding of the Nile River, which marked the beginning of their agricultural season.

The ancient Greeks celebrated New Year’s Day on the winter solstice, which is the shortest day of the year, and was known as the festival of Kronia.

In ancient Rome, New Year’s Day was originally celebrated on March 1st, but was later moved to January 1st by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE when he reformed the Roman calendar.

The adoption of January 1st as New Year’s Day spread throughout the Roman Empire and eventually to other parts of the world. However, it wasn’t until the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582 that January 1st became the universally recognized date for New Year’s Day.

Today, New Year’s Day is celebrated in many cultures around the world, often with fireworks, parties, and special traditions such as eating specific foods or making resolutions for the coming year.

For some. in the past, New Years isn’t a time of happiness. The day in fact, was just miserable for France’s King Louis XII who married Henry VIII’s sister Mary in 1514. Desperate for a son to carry on the name and sit on the throne the poor man exhausted himself to death trying.

Charles II of Navarre famous death also happened on New Years day. After falling ill, his doctor had him bound from neck to foot in cloth strips much like a mummy. The strips were soaked in brandy. A female attendant was there stitching the strips together and had placed her last stitch at the neckline. After knotting it she, instead of cutting off the excess, used a candle to burn off the tip setting the rest of the brandy soaked wrapping on fire. She ran from the room leaving him to burn to death in his bed.

Finally, the story of Saint Telemachus, also occured on January 1st. The original story by an early church historian has Telemachus in Rome trying to stop a gladiator fight to the death. When he interfered with the fight the crowd turned on him and stoned him to death.

Ronald Regan in 1984 told the story but ended it with a gladiator stabbing him and the crowd leaving the stadium in silence.

Either way it was a bad day for Telemachus, King Louis XII and Charles II. Let’s hope each and every New Years day is good for all of us and fills holes in all are albums!

The drink of choice for the majority of ancient Egyptians? Beer of course.

Beer was popular and frequently drunk throughout the day since local waters, including the Nile River were polluted with refuse and waste. While beer was the commoners drink, those upper ranking Egyptians made wine their drink of choice.

Getting intoxicated at public events was not only welcome, it was expected.

In the US taxation on beer began in September of 1862. Many other items were taxed at this point so it was inevitable that beer would join their ranks.Beer taxation began as a way to fund the Union Army during the Civil War. The taxes were collected in cash. As the war ground to a halt, the discussion of cancelling the tax was heatedly debated. At the end it was decided to keep it but to use tax stamps instead of cash. Stamps began to be used in 1866.

Early beer stamps were frequently destroyed since they were placed where containers were opened.

January 17, 1920, when prohibition went into effect. saw a pause in beer stamp usage but it kicked off again in 1933 when prohibition was repealed and would end usage completely in 1951.

Beer, of course, is celebrated on stamps all over the world.

Mummies would go through an elaborate preservation process before being entombed. The ancient egyptians, for example, believed that the soul (ba) and life force (ka) needed to return to the body or it would perish so they would put the body through an elaborate process.

First they would purify the body by washing it with water from the Nile then bathe it in palm wine. Next, a thin slit was cut into the left side of the body and the liver, lungs, stomach and intestines removed. These were packed in natron which is a type of mineral salt and placed into jars. The heart, which was believed to be the center of the thought, was left in the body to be used in the afterlife.

A stick was inserted through the nostril to pulverize and liquify the brain. It was drain through the nose and discarded. It was then covered, stuffed with natron and left to dry for 40 days to dry everything out.

The body was then washed in water, inside and out, oils applied to the skin and the body cavity stuffed with sawdust. Linen was wrapped around the entire body and a resin covering it to hold it all together. Amulets were placed between the folds to protect the body.

The process was expensive and only the wealthy could afford it. It was effective, though, as many mummies are found well preerved.

Worked for him:

If you went to school in the U.S. you probably heard the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that begins, “

“Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”

The fact of the matter is that Paul Revere made some of the journey but wasn’t the one to alert the Massachusetts colonists that the British were approaching.

He did ride towards Concord, about 20 miles, but was captured soon after by a British Patrol. His horse was confiscated and he was escorted back to Lexington under armed guard. It is also known that a third man in Revere’s party, Dr. Samuel Prescott did alarm the militia in Concord.

Thankfully there were other riders, about forty of them, who carried on the journey, most notably 23 year old Israel Bissell who galloped off to Worcester. Arriving there in two hours he changed horses and headed to Philadelphia, a distance of about 350 miles in only six days.

Side note: Paul Revere never owned the horse he rode out on. It was “borrowed” from a neighbor, Samuel Larkin, and never returned. The horses name is believed to be Brown Beauty.