Historical Shorts

On this date in 1555, Catholicism was restored to England, two years after the ascension of Mary Tudor (the eldest daughter of Henry VIII) to the throne.  The religious woes that wracked England for nearly two hundred years were all tied up with the Tudors.  Henry VIII (who had once defended the pope against Martin Luther) broke with Rome when the pope refused to grant him an annulment from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon (the mother of Mary Tudor), so that he could marry Anne Boleyn (later the mother of Mary’s little sister, Elizabeth.)  Henry’s Church of England remained largely Catholic in doctrine and practice.  When the old King died, he was succeeded by his young son, Edward VI.  Edward was a zealous protestant and in his brief reign, the Reformation came with full force to England.  After Edward’s early death, and an abortive attempt to put the Lady Jane Grey on the throne, Mary was acclaimed Queen.  It was a brief triumph in a tragic life.  Mary had been swept up in her parents’ marital woes.  As Henry moved to break with the Church to get rid of her, Catherine of Aragon clung increasingly to her Catholic faith, which she passed on to Mary.  After her mother’s death, Mary’s life was precarious.  Forced to become a maid of honor to her sister, Elizabeth, she was officially declared a bastard.  Her father alternated between off-handed kindness and frightening cruelty.  He eventually forced her to renounce her mother’s claims – an action that tortured Mary all her life.  Anne Boleyn wanted her executed, and at several times during her father and brother’s reigns, her life was in real danger.  Mary came to the throne determined to restore Catholicism to England, and she did with a vengeance.  Protestants were rooted out and many consigned to the flames.  Among the most prominent victims was Thomas Cramner, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been installed to that post by Henry VIII for the express purpose of annulling the King’s marriage to Mary’s mother.  While it is true that Mary was zealous in hunting down heretics, her crimes were greatly exaggerated by subsequent protestant writers (and earned her the enduring nickname, Bloody Mary.)  In the end, her reforms came to nothing.  Caught in a loveless marriage with a perpetually absent King Philip of Spain, with no children, her health irretrievably broken by her cruel life; Mary died just three years later.  She was succeeded by her sister, Elizabeth, who brought back Protestantism with a vengeance; in the end, executing about as many Catholics as her sister had Protestants.

 On this date in 1859, Frenchman Jules Leotard performed the first trapeze act with the Cirque Napoleon in Paris.  Leotard was born in 1838, the son of a gymnastics instructor.  He studied law and actually passed his law exams; but by the age of 18, he was already experimenting with ropes and rings, and his own innovation, the trapeze bar.  In addition to his ground-breaking work as an acrobat, he also developed the one-piece gym wear that now bears his name – the leotard.

Jules Leotard Bonus – Leotard was also the inspiration for the hugely popular song, “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.”

On this date in 1892, William “Pudge” Heffelfinger became the first professional football player.  Heffelfinger, a three-time All-American guard from Yale, was paid $500 by the Allegheny Athletic Association to play in a game against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club.  Thanks to Heffelfinger and some other “imported” players, Allegheny carried the day.  Heffelfinger went on to coaching jobs at the University of California, Lehigh University and the University of Minnesota.  After careful research, the NFL verified Heffelfinger as the first professional football player in 1960, six years after his death in 1954.

On this date in 1918, the Austrian Emperor Karl, his empire destroyed by the ravages of World War I, abdicated the throne, thereby ending nearly 700 years of Hapsburg rule in central Europe.  He had succeeded his father, Franz Joseph, who had ruled for 68 years.  Poor Karl ruled less than two.

You know how Disney annoys the hell out of you by putting their classic movies “in the vault,” so you can’t buy them except when Disney re-re-re-re-(ad nauseum)-releases them in a “new” edition that costs more?  Well, there are certain Disney movies that will never make it out of the vault.  On this date in 1946, Disney released Song of the South, but don’t look for it at Wal-Mart – the racial stereotypes are too brutal for today’s sensibilities.  From the Black Crows in Dumbo, through a series of short cartoons, Disney willingly played to the prejudices of the time (and to be fair, they were not alone in this – cartoons and live action movies all bought into the prejudices of the era.)  There is actually a market at comic book conventions for bootleg copies of these cartoons.  So the next time you’re complaining about having to shell out $30 for the “new” edition of Cinderella, remember – they’re only trying to make up for the cartoons they can’t release.