Aaron Hollman's Blog

Weekly Roundup

Motivational Monday:
Benefits Of A Clean Workspace (A Personal Experience)

Tech Tuesday:
My Review of the Canon PowerShot SX110 IS

Wild Wednesday:
Pimpin’ My Photoblog Edition

History Thursday:
Apollo 11

Food Friday:
Spicy Garlic Shrimp and Pasta

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Apollo 11 Insignia

Did you see all the news this week about the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing? If not, here is what happened.

Apollo 11 was not the first manned flight to the moon, it was, in fact, the third. How is this possible you ask? The previous two missions, Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 only orbited the moon with no descent to the lunar surface, Apollo 11 was the first to land on the moon.

Launch

Apollo 11 was launched on July 16, 1969 at 1:32 PM local time atop a Saturn V rocket from launch pad LC 39A, a launch pad that is still active today having launched Space Shuttle Endevour last week. The Saturn V carried the Command Module, called Columbia, the Lunar Module, called Eagle and the three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. (called Buzz) and Michael Collins.

Apollo 11 took twelve minutes to reach orbit at which time it orbited Earth one and a half times before firing the final stage that would propel it towards the moon. Thirty minutes after the final stage fired, the command module seperated from the rocket to dock with the lunar module which was then extracted from the rocket. For the remaining three days of the trip, the modules would stay docked in this fasion until it entered lunar orbit.

Descent

On July 20, 1969, the lunar module seperated from the command module and began its descent to the surface of the moon. Their descent was faster than they had anticipated and as a result, they landed several miles from their original landing site.

The descent was not the only issue they had during landing. As Armstrong piloted Eagle, a couple of warnings flashed as well as a low fuel warning alert. The low fuel warning turned out to be caused by the difference in gravity and was corrected for future lunar missions.

Once landed, Buzz Aldrin spoke the first words from the surface of the moon which were, “Contact light! Okay, engine stop. ACA – out of detent” but it was Neil Armstrong who said the famous quote, ”Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

On the Surface

Six hours or preparation after landing, the two Astronauts began their moonwalk. Armstrong descended first, barely able to make it through the hatch with his EV equipment on. He stood on the landing pad of the lunar module and described the moon dust as a fine powder. He then took the first human step on a stellar body outside of Earth saying, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind”

The activities on the surface focused more on engineering tasks for future missions and less on research. Armstrong snapped photos of the landing module for the engineers back on Earth to examine how the landing affected it. Aldrin tested different ways to move on the surface to ascertain the easiest way to get around. He eventually found that the loping method of movement was the best.

What little research was done was basic geological research. They collected samples of moon dust and rocks to bring back to Earth. Armstrong took some photos of a crater while Aldrin took a geological core sample to bring back with them. In 2.5 hours, it was all over.

Ascent and return

In just a few hours, it was time for the astronauts to return to the lunar module to prepare their ascent. They returned to the module and lightened the load by jettisoning unnescessary equipment such as parts of their EV suits and old equipment. They would then sleep for seven hours before returning to the command module for the trip home.

Right before settling in to sleep, Aldrin accidentally broke the circuit that fired the ascent engines. At first there was a concern that this would strand them on the surface of the moon, but they were later able to use a pen to fire the engines.

After waking up seven hours later, they fired the ascent engine to return to the Columbia command module where astronaut Michael Collins was waiting. They left behind seismic monitoring equipment and a laser range finder.

After the rendezvous with Columbia, the Eagle lunar module was ejected where it would eventually crash back into the moon. Columbia returned to Earth where the capsule splashed into the Pacific Ocean. The USS Hornet picked up the astronauts and immediately placed them in quarantine, which would last for three weeks, for fear that unknown pathogens could have been picked up from the lunar surface.

After their quarantine, they were declared healthy and released to the general public once again. They were cheered and given parades for their historic mission.

The Future

NASA is using the experience learned from the lunar landings of the Apollo missions to prepare return missions to the moon. It has recently launched the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter to study the terrain of the moon to look for future landing sites, a task that was previously assigned to the Ranger program in preperation for the Apollo landings. See my previous post: NASA Is Returning to the Moon

Thoughts

I am proud of the accomplishments of NASA and the three astronauts who were part of the first manned mission to the moon as well as the rest of the the people who were responsible for the mission. I am deeply offended by the ignorant who have nothing better to do than to perpetuate conspiracy theories that we have never been to the moon. Shame on them.

Sources

Apollo 11 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NASA Apollo 11 30th Anniversary
Apollo 11 Mission
The History Place – Apollo 11

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Little known in the West, widely known in Russia.

The thirteenth century prince, Alexander Nevsky was the Grand Prince of Novgorod which is in the north-west part modern day Russia, near Scandinavia. Because of the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches and, more recently, the Cold War, many people in the Western World have may not have heard of him, but he was a great hero for the Russian people.

Born the fourth son of the Grand Prince, Nevsky was never expected to sit on the throne, but fate, and a powerful Khan of the powerful Golden Horde, had different ideas. In 1252, he was eventually place on the Grand Throne.

During the early part of Alexander’s adult life, he had to deal with threats from all sides of his territory. To the West were the Finnish and Swedes who were Catholic and held Novgorod in disrespect because of its Orthodox faith. To the East was the Golden Horde, the Mongols who held Russia under its yoke.

Alexander held the latter at bay by paying tribute to the Khan which worked out well for both Alexander and the Horde. The Catholic invaders to the West, he fought of with sword and spear.

On July 15, 1240, Alexander and a small army crossed the Neva river and attacked the Swedes who were at his border. This battle, later known as the Battle of Neva, was a victory for Alexander and was later the impetus for his name, Nevsky. Even though this battle made him popular with the people, the Russian nobility, called the boyars, found Alexander’s growing influence threatening and had him exiled from the city.

Less than a year later, Alexander would be called back from his exile when a fringe wing of the Teutonic Knights, known as the Livonian Knights, invaded the city of Pskov. The tribute he paid to the Horde payed off during this time; his army had been reinforced with a Mongol contingent from the Khan since both the Horde and the Russians had stake in the victory.

Alexander and his army drove the Livonian Knights from the city and would later meet them again on the icy battlefield of Lake Peipus. During the battle, the heavy armour of the crusading knights combined with the spring thawing of the lake caused the ice to crack and break. Many knights and horses fell through and drowned in the depths of the lake. The victory of Alexander during the Battle on the Ice would become an image of national identity and legend for the Russian people up to this very day.

Alexander had played his cards right. Paying tribute to the Golden Horde strengthened his standing as the Prince and weakened the position of the boyers. It also strengthened his foreign position as the Battle of the Ice demonstrated. There are many theories as to why he paid a tribute to the Horde and, at the same time, fought off the Scandinavian forces but the most likely scenario is that the Horde was much stronger than Russia at the time; it could, on a whim, wipe out the entire region. It is most likely for this reason, and the political gains to Alexander, that he intentionally kept Russia as a vassal state to the Golden Horde.

There is also a theory out there that Alexander saw the Catholic church as more of a threat to his people than the Golden Horde. For the most part, the Horde did not interfere with the internal politics of the Russians. More importantly, they did not care about their religion and were satisfied by the tribute they were receiving. Alexander believed that the Catholic church would take both away. As an example of his faith in the Orthodox church, Alexander took monastic vows in it shortly before his death.

Alexander’s legacy lives on to this very day. Several military awards bear his name as does a very famous patriotic film, Alexander Nevsky by Sergei Eisenstein and the musical score by Sergei Prokofiev that accompanied the film. It was little more than propaganda to raise the spirits of the Russian people at a time when the Third Reich of the German Empire was on the rise just before World War II. This is evidenced by the crusading knights who, in the film, were made out to be German. Ire was greatly inflamed among the Russian populous who watched the film when it depicted the German knights throwing Russian babies into large bonfires.

In addition to the awards and the films, there has been a long tradition in the Soviet and, later, Russian navies to name warships after Alexander. The most recent example being a nuclear submarine currently being built.

In December of 2008, Alexander Nevsky was voted the greatest Russian in the Name of Russia television poll, not bad for a prince that most of us in the Western world have probably never heard of.

Alexander Nevsky – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Concise Biography of Alexander Nevsky
Aleksandr Nevskiy (1938)
alexander nevsky – Google Search

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October 14, 1066
Normans vs Anglo-Saxons

The Normans

The Normans of the era of the English Conquest were descended from Scandinavian Vikings. They spoke a latin dialect known as Norman which would later be infused into the French Language. They are from an area of Northern France known as Normandy, the same place the Allied Forces invaded the European mainland during D-Day in World War II.

In addition to Normandy, they had also lived up to their Viking ancestor’s reputation and conquered parts of Italy and Byzantium, primarily in the Holy Land.

The Normans, like the Vikings, lived off what they could find in the lands they conquered. This allowed themselves to adopt architectural styles and lifestyles of those that they had conquered. An example of this would be the architectural style they adopted in Italy; it combines the Islamic and Lombardy styles of the time with their own.

The Anglo-Saxons

The Anglo-Saxons were relative newcomers to the island being there for only four to six hundred years prior. They invaded England between 400 and 600 A.D. after the Romans had left and their empire subsequently crumbled. The Anglo-Saxon rule of the greater part of England was greatly decentralized into a collection of seven kingdoms called the Heptarchy. The main kingdoms of the Heptarchy were West Saxon (Wessex), East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, South Saxon (Sussex) and East Saxon (Essex). This Heptarchy was later combined into the Kingdom of England in 927 A.D.

The primary language of the Anglo-Saxons was Old English which was a variation of German. The combination of Old English and Norman would eventually evolve into Middle English and finally, Modern English, the language spoken in England now.

The Anglo-Saxons believed in the divine right of kings. They believe that the gods, during pagan times, and later, God, appointed the king to rule the kingdom. This belief was strengthened after the Norman Conquest.

The legal system of the Anglo-Saxons was harsh, even harsher than the Old Testament punishment of ‘an eye for an eye’. For example, if a person was caught stealing, they would loose a hand or a nose.

The role of women in Anglo-Saxon society was that of almost equals. They enjoyed many more freedoms under the Anglo-Saxons than they did under the militaristic society of the Normans who relegated them to be unimportant. They had the right to own property, make wills and even held jobs as bakers, comedians, and singers.

The Anglo-Saxons were simple minimalists. They built forts and castles of wood instead of stone. They used what worked and saw no reason to change.

Reasons for the Battle

There were many reasons for the Battle of Hastings and the subsequent conquest of England by William and the Normans, but the most important was that William saw the crowning of Harold as an offense against him and as a declaration of war. William claimed that Edward the Confessor, a cousin of his, had promised him the throne years ago.

After Edward’s death, Harold Godwinson gained the support of a council of elders known as the Witenagemot (literally ‘meeting of wise men’) to support his claim to the throne. On January 5 of 1066, he was crowned as king. The crowning of Harold sent shock waves throughout Western Europe.

In addition to William having a claim to the English throne, Harald Hardrada, King of Norway also allegedly had a claim to the English crown made more than twenty years earlier when the Danish King Harthacnut had ruled much of England. The claim had not been pressed since Harthacnut had died, but with encouragement of Harold Godwinson’s brother, Tostig, Harald pressed his claim. The result was the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25, 1066.

Harold Godwinson won the Battle of Stamford Bridge decisively, but with his forces near York, this allowed William to land his forces at Bulverhythe in western Hastings unopposed. Harold rushed his forces south to meet William arriving at what would be the battlefield on October 13, the night before the battle. This rush to Hastings after fighting a tough battle at Stamford Bridge probably weakened Harold’s forces both mentally and physically and may have played a role in the outcome of the battle.

The Battle

The Anglo-Saxons were a force composed mostly of infantry and lacked any sort of cavalry. The advantage they had was that they employed a defensive technique similar to the ancient Greek Phalanxes known as a shield wall. The infantry line would ‘lock’ their shields together to form a wall that was very effective against barrages by archers.

In addition to the infantry, the Anglo-Saxons used spearmen and housecarls who were the king’s personal body guards. The housecarls used two-handed Danish Battleaxes similar to what the vikings had used.

William, on the other hand, used combined arms. He combined archers with infantry and, for the final push, employed cavalry. His normal battle tactics involved first firing volleys of arrows at the enemies infantry to weaken and demoralize them. He did this with Harold’s forces as well.

What William did not count on was the effectiveness of the shield wall. This wall protected most of the infantry from the volley and caused William to prematurely send his infantry to meet the English infantry. When William’s infantry confronted the English, they were quickly overwhelmed by the number of English infantry that remained alive after the barrage. To counter this, William sent in his cavalry earlier than he had wanted. The powerful warhorses shied away and broke when they approached the aggressive English line.

The English had tasted blood and wanted more. Rallied by their successful defense, the English line began to bleed off to pursue the retreating attackers. They had aggressively pressed the Normans into a rout and managed to kill William’s horse from beneath him. This further fueled the Norman rout since they believed that their Duke was dead. William rose from the horse, took his helmet off to prove he was alive and turned the rout into a rally.

With William, the once retreating forces of the Normans pressed a counter attack on the English before they realized the tables had turned. Once the English returned to their positions and lined up, William ordered his archers to fire toward the rear of the English army, where Harold was at. What happened next for certain is lost to history but, according to the Bayeux Tapestry, Harold was shot in the eye by an arrow, killing him instantly. This sucked the wind out of the English forces and they were quickly destroyed. Later that night, William celebrated his victory with a feast on the battlefield.

The Aftermath

After resting for more than two weeks in the Hastings area, William began to grow tired of waiting for the Anglo-Saxons to come to him to submit. He began his march toward London. On the way there, almost his entire army, including himself, fell ill with dysentery. After a short skirmish at the London Bridge and being reinforced with fresh forces from across the English Channel, the Northern Lords, including Edgar, who had just been elected king, declared their support for William effectively ending the conquest of England.

Future Impact

The Battle of Hastings and the subsequent conquest of England changed many things in Western Civilization forever. The first of which is the English Language. Before the invasion, the English Language was closer to German than what we consider English now. After the invasion, French was mixed in with the Old English Language to produce a new language, Middle English. (Think ‘Thee’, ‘Thus’, ‘Thine’, the language of Shakespeare) which would later evolve into Modern English.

The administration system also changed in England after the conquest. The king was made absolute landowner of the entire kingdom and granted lands to nobles as he saw fit. In effect, it strengthened the kings powers. This also completely eliminated the existing aristocracy of the Anglo-Saxons.

The architectural style of England changed as well. Instead of wood forts, castles and structures, stone was used to a greater extent. William had castles built all across the island to deal with any threat that would arise.

The Norman Conquest, occuring close to one thousand years ago, was the last successful invasion of England by an outside power. There have been attempts since that time to invade the island nation, most notibly by the French, Spanish, Germans and even Americans, but none have ever come close to accomplishing what this Duke, William of Normandy did, in 1066.

Sources

Battle of Hastings – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Battle of Hastings 1066 Introduction
Invasion of England, 1066
The Battle of Hastings – 1066

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Vlad III Tepes (Dracula)

I should begin this post by first stating that Dracula was not a vampire. He was a fifteenth century prince in what is now present day Romania. This does not mean that his blood lust was any less strong than the fictional vampire that Bram Stoker first wrote about, in fact, it was just the opposite.

Dracula’s real name was Vlad Tepes III, Prince of Wallachia but he is known by many names. Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracul, even Dracula. The name Dracula comes from Dracul which means ‘Dragon’; he was of the Order of the Dragon Knighthood. He earned the name ‘Impaler’ for his preferred method of execution, slow impalement upon a stake. (for details see Methods of execution. Caution: graphic content)

During his young life, Vlad was sent by his father, Vlad II Dracul to be a hostage to the Ottoman Sultan. In exchange for sending Dracula and his younger brother, Radu, as hostages, the Ottomans agreed not to attach Wallachia. It was this experience that helped to form Dracula’s hatred for the Ottoman’s as well as his hatred of his father, whom he accuesed of breaking his oath to the Order of the Dragon, which was to fight the Ottomans no matter what.

After his father’s assassination, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire put Dracula on the throne of Wallachia to be a puppet ruler for the him. Dracula’s reign was brief. The next year a Hungarian regent named John Hunyadi invaded Wallachia and ousted the Prince. He was forced to flee to Moldavia where he was protected by his uncle, Bogdan II.

In 1451, Dracula returned from his exile in Moldavia during a Hungarian campaign to drive the Ottoman’s from Serbia. Dracula took it upon himself to invade his homeland of Wallachia and take the throne for himself. A combination of his attack and Hunyadi dying of the plague helped cement his position of power.

The early part of his main reign focused on eliminating threats to his own power. His first task was to physically kill many in the nobility class. Much of the nobility was killed by his own hand. In addition to killing, he also reduced the role that nobility had in his land by raising the peasantry to power.

After his power was strengthened, he turned his attention back to the thing he hated most in life, the Ottoman empire. He allied himself with Hungary and stopped paying the tribute to the Sultan that his father had been paying. In late 1461, Vlad crossed the Danube and devastated the area of Turkish control. He did not discriminate who he killed; men, women and children were all killed by his rage.

Eventually, Dracula’s brother, Radu, who sided with the Turks, was left to fight Dracula alone; his Turkish allies had fled, disgusted they were unable to subdue Dracula. Radu struck a deal with the Hungarian King to imprison Dracula. During his imprisonment, Radu was in control of Wallachia.

Fortune shined on Dracula again when his release from captivity coincided with the death of Radu from syphilis. Dracula, once again, sat on the Princely throne of Wallachia.

Dracula’s final reign would be short, lasting barely a month. On December 14, 1476, Dracula was killed in a battle against the Turks near Bucharest. His body was taken by the Turks who decapitated the head and sent it back to the Sultan. The Sultan displayed the head on a pike for all to see that the Impaler, the man who had plagued them, was finally dead.

Starting shortly before his death then immediately after, accounts of Dracula’s cruelty spread throughout Eastern Europe from Germany to Russia as propaganda. The cruelty of his deeds was used to comfort a suspicious public that their government was not that bad. In short, the stories of Dracula were ‘feel good’ pieces.

The legend would exponentially grow once Bram Stoker had published his story of Dracula. It was Stoker who first linked the 15th Century Romanian prince with the mythical creature, the vampire. Today, the tales of Dracula have given rise to a whole genre of vampire based stories. From the major motion pictures such as Nasferatu, The Lost Boys, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Twilight (based on a series of novels) to television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Forever Knight, True Blood and Moonlight, the vampire genre is alive and well thanks to this long dead prince of darkness.

Personal Observations

Although Vlad Tepis III (Dracula) was an Orthodox Christian, later converting to Catholism, his actions were anything but Christian-like. His methods of rule and war were nothing short of terroristic in nature. The execution of not only war prisoners in the most inhumane of ways, but also innocent men, women, and children in the same manner would strike terror and fear into enemies and citizens alike.

It is easy to see how Bram Stoker drew from this Romanian prince the inspiration for his vampire horror story Dracula, an evil character who was not as evil as his real life influence.

aaron

As always, corrections and comments welcome.

Vlad III the Impaler – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HowStuffWorks “Who was the real Count Dracula?”
VLAD TEPES – The Historical Dracula
Vlad the Impaler
Vampire TV shows – Snarkerati bloodlust
Order of the Dragon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Flag of Greenland

This is just a quick shout-out to Greenland and the implementation of a referendum passed last fall in which it gained self-determination today. This means that Greenland is one step closer to gaining its independence from Denmark. Its good to know that independence does not always have to be violent. Way to go Greenland!

aaron

(I thought for sure that the flag would be green.)

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I will be posting a little article on the Battle of Tours in the near future. As I write it, I realize that it has been a long while since I wrote anything academic-wise. As I mentioned on the About page, I am a fan of history, mostly ancient and Medieval, the Battle of Tours almost falls right between them both. I find the Battle of Tours very interesting since it was one of the most pivotable battles in Western Civilization history. I only hope that after the article is posted, it is accurate and easy to understand. Of course, comments and corrections will be welcome.

aaron

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