1775 Was a Heck of a Ride Around the Sun

1775 Was a Heck of a Ride Around the Sun September 14, 2023

1775 by whatever quirk of history or cosmology,
was one heck of a ride around the sun.

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Many facts are taken virbadium with some variations  from Wikipedia.

The 17th century was a time in which

  • Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and statue of David exist.
  • Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper exist.
  • William Shakespeare’s plays exist
  • The music of Johann Sebastian Bach exists.
  • The novel  Don Quixote, Pilgrim’s Progress and Paradise Lost exists.
  • America had a revolution that started a country.
  • 70 years before the Revolution: July 20, 1705 – The planet Mercury transits Jupiter, as seen by astronomers from Earth. The event happens again on October 4, 1708, but will not be seen again from Earth until October 27, 2088
  • 60 years before the Revolution:  May 3, 1715 – A total solar eclipse is seen across southern England, Sweden and Finland (the last total eclipse visible in London for almost 900 years). English astronomer Edmond Halley (who is using the old style Julian calendar date of April 22) records the first observation noted of the phenomenon of “Baily’s beads“, in which higher elevations on the moon can be observed obscuring portions of the light moments before and after totality.
  • 56 years before the Revolution:April 25 1719: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is first published.
  • 49 years before the Revolution:1726- Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift is first published.
  •  30 years before the Revolution: 1735 Giovanni Battista Piazzetta  paints The Assumption of Mary. (The Louvre)

  • 26 years before the Revolution: 1749-The Mass in B minor  is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed the year before the composer’s death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctus Bach had composed in 1724.
  • 20 years before the Revolution: March 12 ,1755– A steam engine is used in the American colonies for the first time as New Jersey copper mine owner Arent Schuyler installs a Newcomen atmospheric engine to pump water out of a mineshaft.
  • years before the Revolution:March 12 ,1755
  • 11 years before the Revolution: 1764- John Hannon (or alternatively spelled “Hannan” in some sources) and the American physician Dr. James Baker started importing beans and producing chocolate in the Lower Mills section of Dorchester, Massachusetts.
  • 6 years before the Revolution:1769-St. Junipero Serra founds his first mission in San Diego,California.

The Decade of Revolution Begins

  • 1771 – In 1771, John Wesley formally authorized Methodist women to preach in public. This included Sarah Crosby ( October 6,  1729 –  October, 29, 1804) She  is considered to be the first woman to hold this title of a Methodist preacher.

1775
The Year of the Revolution

This was a year in which

Marie-Suzanne Giroust – Self-portrait with an image of Maurice Quentin de La Tour (approximate date)

Arrivals

Charles Lamb (February 10, 1775 – December 27, 1834) author of  Tales from Shakespeare (1807) along with his sister Mary Anne Lamb (December 3,1764 – May 20, 1847)

Departures

Paul of the Cross (January 3, 1694 – October 18, 1775) was an Italian Roman Catholic mystic, and founder of the Passionists.

Publications Hot of the Press

Sanctifying Time

February 15 – Pope Pius VI succeeds Pope Clement XIV as the 250th pope.

For the same reason you should undoubtedly always give special attention to the beauty of the house of God and the splendor and dignity of objects dedicated to the divine service. Such beauty and splendor often greatly inspire the faithful, and draw them to the veneration of sacred realities. It would be very improper for the bishop’s house to be cleaner and furnished more tastefully than the abode of holiness, the palace of the living God. It would make no sense to see holy vestments, adornments for the altar and all the furniture in the church worn out with age and torn or dirty, while the bishop’s table is well laden, the priest’s clothing very clean and finely coordinated.5.
Pope Pius VI – Inscrutabile – On the Problems of the Pontificate, December 25, 1775

Revolutionary War

“Keep in mind that when we were founded by those Americans of the eighteenth century, none had had any prior experience in revolutions or nation making. They were, as we would say, winging it. They were idealistic and they were young. We see their faces in the old paintings done later in their lives or looking at us from the paper money in our wallets, and we see the awkward teeth and the powdered hair, and we think of them as elder statesmen.

But George Washington, when he took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge in 1775, was forty-three, and he was the oldest of them. Jefferson was thirty-three when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. John Adams was forty. Benjamin Rush – one of the most interesting of them all – was thirty when he signed the Declaration. They were young people, feeling their way, improvising, trying to do what would work. They had no money, no navy, no real army. There wasn’t a bank in the entire country.

It was a country of just 2,500,000 people, 500,000 of whom were held in slavery. And think of this: Few nations in the world know when they were born. We know exactly when we began and why we began and who did it.”
— David McCullough (The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For)

If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

“LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, —
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Paul Revere’s Ride

  • April 19 – Battles of Lexington and Concord:Hostility between Britain and its American colonies explodes into bloodshed, igniting the American Revolutionary War which officially ends on February 3, 1783 when Great Britain acknowledges the independence of the United States of America. At this time, the Spanish government does not grant diplomatic recognition.

Another problem was that the guns they used in those days, called muskets, took forever to load. First you had to put your powder in, then you had to put in a little piece of flint, then you had to ram some wadding down there, then you had to put in about a quarter teaspoon of paprika, and finally you had to put in your musket ball, which usually popped right back out again because there was hardly any room.

It took so long to complete the Battle of Lexington that the two sides were nearly four hours late to the next scheduled event, the Battle of Concord. This was where the Americans invented the innovative guerrilla tactic of rushing up to the British, who were still dithering around with their formation (‘‘Dammit, Nigel! You’re supposed to be part of the ‘O’!’’), and bonking them manually over the heads with their unloaded muskets.
Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States by Dave Barry | Goodreads

While The Colonists Were Rebelling Against Mother England,
This Also Happened

The Sound of Music and Other Cultural Milestones

James Watt‘s 1769 steam engine patent is extended to June 1800 by Act of Parliament and the first engines are built under it.

What a year.

BUT on July 4, 1776

The Continental Congress ratifies the declaration by the United States of its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. with United States Declaration of Independence: One of the signers of the DOI was Charles Carroll. He was the only Catholic signatory of the Declaration and the longest surviving, dying 56 years after its signing. His cousin John Carroll served as the first bishop of the Diocese of Baltimore, the first diocese in the new United States. He later became the first archbishop of Baltimore. Until 1808, Carroll administered the entire American Catholic Church.

Also earlier that year on March 14, 1776,Captain John Barry received his first captain’s commission in the Continental Navy on  signed by John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress. Barry was a religious man and began each day at sea with a reading from the Bible. He had great regard for his crew and their well-being and always made sure they were properly provisioned while at sea. 

During his naval career Barry commanded the U.S. warships DelawareLexingtonRaleighAlliance and United States.

Also these American Classic books were published…

Thomas Paine’ s Common Sense
Adam Smith‘s  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Ater this…

1/2 a decade later

The War is still going on.

And so is this…

1780

  • May 19 – New England’s Dark Day: An unaccountable darkness spreads over New England, regarded by some observers as a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.
  • July 17 – The first bank created in the United States, the Bank of Pennsylvania, is chartered.
  • September 21 – Benedict Arnold gives detailed plans of West Point to Major John André. Three days later, André is captured, with papers revealing that Arnold was planning to surrender West Point to the British.
  • 1780 – Josephinism is a name given collectively to the domestic policies of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1765–1790). During the ten years in which Joseph was the sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy (1780–1790), he attempted to legislate a series of drastic reforms to remodel Austria in the form of what liberals saw as an ideal Enlightened state. This provoked severe resistance from powerful forces within and outside his empire, but ensured that he would be remembered as an “enlightened ruler” by historians from then to the present day.
  •  Johann Sebastian Bach’s children and Mozart are still making music.
  • John Wesley Publishes  Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Rebellion
  • Arthur Young Publishes A Tour in Ireland

TO judge of Ireland by the conversation one sometimes hears in England, it would be supposed that one half it was covered with bogs  and the other with mountains filled with Irish ready to fly at the sight of a civilized being.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze – August 21, 1725 – 4 March 4,  1805)
The hermit
 or The distributor of rosaries, 1780

Finally in

1783

The War Ends

A Decade After the Start of the War

1785

 Angelika Kauffmann October 30, 1741 – November 5, 1807)
Pliny the Younger and His Mother at Miseno

News of the World

Arrivals

Departures

Publications Hot of the Press

Sanctifying Time

The cornerstone for the oldest Catholic parish in New York State, St. Peter’s Church, is laid.  The first Mass celebrated a year later in 1786. Some notable parishioners over the year s include former slave venerable Pierre Toussaint, the first born American saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, and the notorious out law Billy The Kid.

The Sound of Music  

Moving On in the Century

 Statehood Begins

1 Delaware December 7, 1787
2 Pennsylvania December 12, 1787
3 New Jersey December 18, 1787

The Death of Socrates (1787)
Jacques-Louis David  metmuseum

4 Georgia January 2, 1788
5 Connecticut January 9, 1788
6 Massachusetts February 6, 1788
7 Maryland April 28, 1788
8 South Carolina May 23, 1788
9 New Hampshire June 21, 1788
10 Virginia June 25, 1788
11 New York July 26, 1788

1789

French Revolution Begins

12 North Carolina November 21, 1789

13 Rhode Island May 29, 1790

14 Vermont March 4, 1791

15 Kentucky June 1, 1792

Gilbert Stuart – Lansdowne portrait of George Washington

16 Tennessee June 1, 1796

The Washington Family by Edward Savage (1789–1796).

Alexander at the Tomb of Cyrus the Great, by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1796)

J. M. W. Turner – Fishermen at Sea (his first oil painting to be exhibited at the Royal Academy)

  • February 10,1798 – The Pope is taken captive, and the Papacy is removed from power, by French General Louis-Alexandre Berthier.
  • June 7, 1798 –  Fr. Gabriel Richard P.S.S. (October 15, 1767 – September 13, 1832) becomes the assistant pastor at Basilica of Sainte Anne de Détroit (Sainte Anne’s Church)
  • August 17,  1798 – Our Lady of La Vang refers to a reported Marian apparition at a time when Catholics were persecuted and killed in Vietnam. Though there is no official Vatican recognition of this event as a Marian apparition, on June 19, 1998, Pope John Paul II publicly recognized the importance of Our Lady of La Vang and expressed desire to rebuild the La Vang Basilica in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the first vision. In 2012, the New Basilica was officially built with the endorsement from the Vietnamese government.
  • October 2, 1798 – The Cherokee nation signs a treaty with the United States allowing free passage through Cherokee lands in Tennessee through the Cumberland Gap through the Appalachian Mountains from Virginia into Kentucky.

Just Before the Turn of Century in

1799

Jacques-Louis David-The Intervention of the Sabine Women

News of the World

Publications Hot off the Press

Arrivals

Departures

John Adams (1735–1826) was in office as the 2nd president March 4, 1797March 4, 1801)

Sanctifying Time

  • August 29 – Pope Pius VI, at the time the longest reigning Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, dies as a prisoner of war in the citadel of the French city of Valence, after 24½ years of rule. Thus began a six-month period without a valid pope elected. This was due to the very unique logistical problems of  Pope Pius VI being a prisoner and the conclave was being held in Venice and their being a deadlock among the cardinals voting.

The Sound of Music


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