RANGER 7, THE FIRST CLOSE-UP MOON'S PHOTOGRAPHS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Ranger 7, the NASA space probe, that sent back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes, on a day like today in 1964.

Ranger 7 was the first NASA space probe to successfully transmit close-up images of the lunar surface back to Earth.

It was also the first completely successful flight of the Ranger program. Launched on July 28, 1964, Ranger 7 was designed to achieve a lunar-impact trajectory and to transmit high-resolution photographs of the lunar surface during the final minutes of flight up to impact.

The spacecraft carried six television vidicon cameras -two wide-angle (channel F, cameras A and B) and four narrow-angle (channel P)- to accomplish these objectives. The cameras were arranged in two separate chains, or channels, each self-contained with separate power supplies, timers, and transmitters so as to afford the greatest reliability and probability of obtaining high-quality video pictures.

Ranger 7 transmitted over 4,300 photographs during the final 17 minutes of its flight. After 68.6 hours of flight, the spacecraft impacted between Mare Nubium and Oceanus Procellarum. This landing site was later named Mare Cognitum. The velocity at impact was 2.61 kilometers per second, and the performance of the spacecraft exceeded hopes. No other experiments were carried on the spacecraft.

Although NASA had attempted to put a positive spin on Ranger 6 on the grounds that everything except the camera system had worked well, William J. Coughlin, editor of the publication Missiles and Rockets, called it a one hundred percent failure and JPL's record thus far was a disgrace. The mission had not been a complete failure, but Coughlin was not alone in his opinion that Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a nonprofit laboratory and extension of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), was a soft academic environment without the drive or ambition needed to make the missions succeed. He considered Ranger a loser and for a while, anyone at NASA involved in the Ranger program tried to conceal it. It was also being said that sending probes up for the sole purpose of returning images was pointless and accomplished nothing that Apollo could not also achieve.

On July 6, Ranger 7 completed its ground testing and was stacked atop the booster. On July 9, a NASA committee met and deemed the booster and spacecraft fully ready for launch, which was targeted for the 27th.

The first countdown on July 27 failed due to a defective battery in the Atlas and a problem with the ground guidance equipment. The next day, all went smoothly and Ranger 7 lifted off from LC-12 at 12:50 PM EST. The weather was clear and cloudless on this launch and Atlas staging was observed by tracking cameras. The expected propellant cloud enveloped the booster, but no anomalous events occurred this time. Thirty minutes after liftoff, the Agena restarted to boost Ranger 7 on a trajectory towards the Moon.

The flight trajectory for Ranger 7 was quite accurate, but a short midcourse correction was carried out early on the morning of July 29 to ensure impact in the Sea of Storms instead of the far side of the Moon. The warmup period for the TV cameras would be performed earlier and made shorter than on Ranger 6. Out of fear of jeopardizing the mission, ground controllers decided that the probe's orientation was acceptable enough and they would not risk maneuvering with the attitude control thrusters to get into a better angle. At 6:09 AM PDT, the first video imagery reached Earth.

Ranger 7 reached the Moon on July 31. The F-channel began its one-minute warm-up 18 minutes before impact. The first image was taken at 13:08:45 UT at an altitude of 2,110 kilometers. Transmission of 4,308 photographs of excellent quality occurred over the final 17 minutes of flight. The final image taken before impact has a resolution of 0.5 metres.

The spacecraft encountered the lunar surface in direct motion along a hyperbolic trajectory, with an incoming asymptotic direction at an angle of -5.57° from the lunar equator. The orbit plane was inclined 26.84° to the lunar equator. After 68.6 hours of flight, Ranger 7 impacted in an area between Mare Nubium and Oceanus Procellarum (subsequently named Mare Cognitum) at 10.6340°S 20.6771°W.

The impact site is listed as 10.63 S, 20.66 W in the initial report Ranger 7 Photographs of the Moon. Impact occurred at 13:25:48.82 UT at a velocity of 2.62 km/s. The spacecraft performance was excellent and the success of the mission finally brought a turnaround in NASA's fortunes after the endless string of lunar probe failures since 1958.

Ranger 7 is credited for beginning the peanut tradition at NASA command stations. On the success of Ranger 7, someone in the control room was noticed eating peanuts. Since 1964, control rooms ceremonially open a container of peanuts for luck and tradition.

More information: NASA

We are probably nearing the limit 

of all we can know about astronomy.

Simon Newcomb

CATHERINE BUSH, WRITING SONGS SINCE 11 YEARS OLD

Today, The Grandma has been listening to Kate Bush, the English singer and songwriter, who was born on a day like today in 1958.

Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. 

Bush began writing songs at age 11. She was signed to EMI Records after Pink Floyd's David Gilmour helped produce a demo tape. 

In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single Wuthering Heights, becoming the first female artist to achieve a UK number one with a solely self-written song. Her debut album, The Kick Inside, was released that same year.

Bush slowly gained artistic independence in album production and has produced all her studio albums by herself since The Dreaming (1982).

Bush has released 25 UK Top 40 singles, including the Top 10 hits The Man with the Child in His Eyes, Babooshka, Running Up That Hill, Don't Give Up (a duet with Peter Gabriel), and King of the Mountain. All nine of her studio albums reached the UK Top 10, with all but one reaching the top five, including the number one albums Never for Ever (1980), Hounds of Love (1985) and the greatest hits compilation The Whole Story (1986). She took a hiatus between her seventh and eighth albums, The Red Shoes (1993) and Aerial (2005). 

In 2011, Bush released the albums Director's Cut and 50 Words for Snow. She drew attention again in 2014 with her concert residency Before the Dawn, her first shows since 1979's The Tour of Life.

Bush was the first British solo female artist to top the UK Albums Chart and the first female artist to enter it at number one. Her eclectic musical style, unconventional lyrics, performances and literary themes have influenced a diverse range of artists. 

In 2022, Running Up That Hill received renewed attention after it appeared in the Netflix series Stranger Things, becoming Bush's second UK number one and reaching the top of several other charts. It peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100, and its parent album, Hounds of Love, became Bush's first album to reach the top of a Billboard albums chart.

Bush has received 14 Brit Awards nominations, winning for Best British Female Artist in 1987, and has been nominated for three Grammy Awards.

In 2002, Bush was recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to music. She became a Fellow of The Ivors Academy in the UK in 2020. Bush was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.

More information: Kate Bush

Bush was born on 30 July 1958 at a maternity hospital in Bexleyheath, Kent, to an English doctor, general practitioner Robert Bush (1920-2008), and Hannah Patricia (née Daly) (1918-1992), an Irish staff nurse, daughter of a farmer in County Waterford.

Bush's musical aesthetic is eclectic, and is known to employ varied influences and meld disparate styles, often within a single song or over the course of an album. Simon Reynolds of The Guardian called Bush the queen of art-pop, and she has also been described as art rock, baroque pop, post-progressive, progressive pop, avant-pop and experimental pop. She has been grouped with other arty 1970s and '80s British pop rock artists such as Roxy Music and Peter Gabriel.

Even in her earliest works, with piano the primary instrument, she wove together diverse influences, drawing on classical music, glam rock, and a wide range of ethnic and folk sources. This has continued throughout her career. By the time of Never for Ever, Bush had begun to make prominent use of the Fairlight CMI synthesiser, which allowed her to sample and manipulate sounds, expanding her sonic palette.

Bush has a soprano vocal range. Her vocals contain elements of British, Anglo-Irish and most prominently (southern) English accents and, in its use of musical instruments from various periods and cultures, her music has differed from American pop norms. Reviewers have used the term surreal to describe her music. Her songs explore melodramatic emotional and musical surrealism that defies easy categorisation. It has been observed that even her more joyous pieces are often tinged with traces of melancholy and vice versa.

More information: Instagram-Kate Bush

I don't aim for perfection.
But I do want to try and come up 

with something interesting.

Kate Bush

ANNIBALE DE GASPARIS DISCOVERS 15 EUNOMIA IN 1851

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Annibale de Gasparis, who discovered asteroid 15 Eunomia on a day like today in 1851.

Annibale de Gasparis (9 November 1819-21 March 1892) was an Italian astronomer, known for discovering asteroids and his contributions to theoretical astronomy.

De Gasparis was born in 1819 in Bugnara to Angelo de Gasparis and Eleonora Angelantoni originally from Tocco da Casauria. Son of a doctor, he studied in the seminars of Sulmona and Chieti, becoming passionate of classic novels and learning mathematics as a self-taught person.

In 1838, he arrived in Naples to study engineering at the School of Bridges and Roads, today's Engineering faculty of Naples University, and the following year he was accepted as a student at the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte by the director Ernesto Capocci. He studied mathematics and celestial mechanics and in 1845 he published his first scientific paper on the orbit of the minor planet Vesta. For this studies he earned, as early as 1846, the honorary degree in mathematics by the University of Naples.

In 1848 he participated in the liberal movements, he avoided the Bourbon repression dedicating to the King Ferdinand II his first discovery: the asteroid Hygiea, made on 12 April 1849 with the equatorial telescope of Reichenbach & Utzschneider, giving it the name of Igea Borbonica. 

In 1850, Capocci was dismissed as director of the observatory due to his participation in the liberal revolts. De Gasparis refused to assume the position of observatory director in deference to his mentor and friend Capocci.

In 1858, he was appointed professor of astronomy in Naples University.

After the death of Capocci, 6 January 1864, he was appointed as director of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte in Naples. Due to his illness he left the observatory in 1889 going to live in a country house not far from the Observatory.

De Gasparis published more than 200 scientific papers on mathematics, celestial mechanics, astronomy and meteorology.

He and others occasionally wrote his name as Annibal de Gasparis.

More information: The Royal Society

15 Eunomia is a very large asteroid in the middle asteroid belt. It is the largest of the stony (S-type) asteroids, with 3 Juno as a close second. It is quite a massive asteroid, in 6th to 8th place (to within measurement uncertainties). It is the largest Eunomian asteroid, and is estimated to contain 1% of the mass of the asteroid belt.

Eunomia was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis on July 29, 1851, and named after Eunomia, one of the Horae (Hours), a personification of order and law in Greek mythology. Its historical symbol is a heart with a star on top; it is in the pipeline for Unicode 17.0 as U+1CEC8.

15 Eunomia was in study of asteroids using the Hubble FGS. Asteroids studied include (63) Ausonia, (15) Eunomia, (43) Ariadne, (44) Nysa, and (624) Hektor.

The orbit of 15 Eunomia places it in a 7:16 mean-motion resonance with the planet Mars. Eunomia is used by the Minor Planet Center to calculate perturbations. The computed Lyapunov time for this asteroid is 25,000 years, indicating that it occupies a chaotic orbit that will change randomly over time because of gravitational perturbations of the planets.

Eunomia has been observed occulting stars three times. It has a mean opposition magnitude of +8.5, about equal to the mean brightness of Titan, and can reach +7.9 at a near perihelion opposition.

More information: NASA

Asteroids have us in our sight.
The dinosaurs didn't have a space program,
so they're not here to talk about this problem.
We are, and we have the power to do something about it.
I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy,
to have had the power to deflect an asteroid,
and then not, and end up going extinct.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

1917, THE SILENT PARADE TAKES PLACE IN NEW YORK CITY

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Negro Silent Protest Parade, that took place in New York City, in protest against murders, lynchings, and other violence directed towards African Americans, on a day like today in 1917.

The Negro Silent Protest Parade, commonly known as the Silent Parade, was a silent march of about 10,000 African Americans along Fifth Avenue starting at 57th Street in New York City on July 28, 1917. The event was organized by the NAACP, church, and community leaders to protest violence directed towards African Americans, such as recent lynchings in Waco and Memphis. The parade was precipitated by the East St. Louis riots in May and July 1917 where at least 40 black people were killed by white mobs, in part touched off by a labor dispute where blacks were used for strike breaking.

Prior to May 1917, there began a migration of blacks fleeing threats to life and liberty in the South. Tensions in East St. Louis, Illinois, were brewing between white and black workers. Many blacks had found employment in the local industry. In Spring 1917, the mostly white employees of the Aluminum Ore Company voted for a labor strike and the Company recruited hundreds of blacks to replace them. The situation exploded after rumors of black men and white women fraternizing began to circulate.

Thousands of white men descended on East St. Louis and began attacking African Americans. They destroyed buildings and beat people. The rioting died down, only to rise with vigor again several weeks later. After an incident in which a police officer was shot by black residents of the city, thousands of whites marched and rioted in the city again. The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Rennaissance states that Eyewitnesses likened the mob to a manhunt, describing how rioters sought out blacks to beat, mutilate, stab, shoot, hang, and burn.

The brutality of the attacks by mobs of white people and the refusal by the authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the responsive measures taken by some African Americans in St. Louis and the nation.

In the midst of record heat in New York City on July 28, an estimated 8,000 to 15,000 African Americans marched in silent protest to the lynchings, as in Waco, Memphis, and especially the East St. Louis riots. The march began at 57th Street, down Fifth Avenue, to its end at 23rd Street.

Protesters carried signs that highlighted their discontent. Some signs and banners appealed directly to President Woodrow Wilson. A mounted police escort led the parade. Women and children were next, dressed in white. They were followed by the men, dressed in black. People of all races looked on from both sides of Fifth Avenue. The New York Age estimated that fully fifteen thousand Negroes, who should have taken an active part, looked on."

Black boy scouts handed out fliers describing why they were marching. During the parade, white people stopped to listen to black people explain the reasons for the march and other white bystanders expressed support and sympathy. Some of the messages written on fliers were:

-We march because by the Grace of God and the force of truth, the dangerous, hampering walls of prejudice and inhuman injustices must fall.

-We march because we deem it a crime to be silent in the face of such barbaric acts.

-We march because we want our children to live a better life and enjoy fairer conditions than have fallen to our lot.

The parade was the very first protest of its kind in New York, and the second instance of African Americans publicly demonstrating for civil rights.

The Silent Parade evoked empathy by Jewish people who remembered pogroms against them and also inspired the media to express support of African Americans in their struggle against lynching and oppression.

More information: Beinecke Library

It is impossible to struggle for civil rights,
equal rights for blacks, without including whites.
Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air:
we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.

Maya Angelou

SUSANA MARIA ALFONSO DE AGUIAR, MÍSIA FOREVER

Today, The Grandma has received the saddest news. Susana Maria Alfonso de Aguiar, Mísia, has passed away leaving us an unforgettable artistic legacy and a human absence impossible to full it.

Susana Maria Alfonso de Aguiar (18 June 1955-27 July 2024), known mononymously as Mísia, was a Portuguese fado singer. She was a polyglot, singing some of her songs in Catalan, Spanish, French, English, and Japanese. Mísia's mother was Catalan and used to be a cabaret dancer, which accounts for many of the influences that shaped her music: tango, bolero, the use of Portuguese guitar with accordion, violin and the piano.

Throughout her career, Mísia developed a new style: she modernized Amália Rodrigues's fado, shocking orthodox audiences by adding to the traditional instruments (bass guitar, classical guitar and Portuguese guitar) the sensuality of the accordion and the violin, and borrowing their finest verses from the greatest Portuguese poets.

She recorded a little-known record in Catalan.

Her first solo album was released in 1990, at a time when fado was a poor career choice for a Portuguese singer. 

With the exception of Amália Rodrigues and Carlos do Carmo, there was no audience for fadistas. Nevertheless, Mísia went on to record an album respecting all the traditional features of the genre, including poems from popular fado songwriters, such as Joaquim Frederico de Brito or José Niza, alongside poems by famous Portuguese poets, such as José Carlos Ary dos Santos, and even a piece from Vinicius de Moraes's song, Samba em Prelúdio.

The album bore her name, Mísia, and was very well received by both audience and critics outside Portugal, mainly in France. The album was followed by Fado in 1993, in which she maintained her decision to use lyrics by popular writers and poets. This time she sang songs by Sérgio Godinho (Liberdades Poeticas), Amália Rodrigues (Lágrima), along with poems from António Lobo Antunes (Nasci Para Morrer Contigo), Rosa Lobato de Faria (Fado Quimera and Velhos Amantes based on a song by Jacques Brel) and even a text by future Nobel prize winner José Saramago (Fado Adivinha).

In 1995, she recorded Tanto Menos Tanto Mais (Means Less Is More), which combines the texture of classical fado instruments, the Portuguese guitar, the acoustic guitar and the bass, with that of the violin, the accordion, the piano and even the harp. Once more, she sang António Lobo Antunes, but also Fernando Pessoa and João Monge, one of the most appreciated Portuguese lyrics-writers.

The first album to be released in the USA was Garras dos Sentidos in 1998. The concept of this album was to use lyrics by famous Portuguese poets with melodies belonging to Traditional Fado (where the melody is not bound to specific lyrics). This way, Mísia not only sang text by past poets like Fernando Pessoa, Mário de Sá Carneiro, Natália Correia or António Botto but also contemporary poets like José Saramago and Mário Cláudio, and she also invited two writers to write poems for the album, Agustina Bessa-Luís, who wrote the lyrics for the titletrack, and Lídia Jorge, whose main poem, Fado Do Retorno is sung in two versions: track 4 with piano, accordion, violin and double bass, and track 11 with Portuguese guitar, acoustic guitar, bassa, double bass, violin and accordion.

Her 1999 album, Paixões Diagonais again used songs from a variety of writers, from João Monge, Amélia Muge, Antonio dos Santos or Vitorino Salomé, to Rosa Lobato de Faria or Sérgio Godinho.

In 2001, she decided to pay a tribute to Amália Rodrigues, after the latter's death, and recorded Ritual, where all the songs (except the last one) were recorded as traditional three-instrument fados.

Her 2003 album, Canto, may be considered as her masterpiece. Mixing pieces of the best works of the Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes with poems by Vasco Graça Moura (and lyrics by Sérgio Godinho and Pedro Tamen), Mísia created a musical work she would describe as belonging to her gallery of impossible things.

In her 2005 album Drama Box, Mísia depicts herself as a cabaret dancer living in the Drama Box Hotel with her musicians.

In her 2009 album, Ruas, Mísia goes beyond the boundaries of the fado. The first part of the double album, Lisboarium is an imaginary journey through Lisbon, expressed in fado. The second part, Tourists, however, contains performances by Mísia of very different kinds of music. It includes music in Turkish, Spanish, English and French. The concept is non-fado music that according to Mísia has the fado soul. An example of this is her version of Hurt, originally by Nine Inch Nails but inspired by the version by Johnny Cash.

Senhora da noite was released in 2011. The lyrics are all written by women -13 Fados, 13 women. Writers, poets, authors, Fado singers, singers. Agustina Bessa Luís, Florbela Espanca, Manuela de Freitas, Hélia Correia, Amélia Muge, Lídia Jorge and many more. John Turturro directs the video-clip of O Manto da Rainha (2011), a text by Mísia herself.

2013 was the year of Delikatessen Café Concerto with musical direction by the conductor Fabrízio Romano from Naples, and the participation of Ramón Vargas, Adriana Calcanhotto, Paulo Furtado (The Legendary Tigerman), Melech Mechaya, Iggy Pop and Dead Combo.

Para Amália is dedicated to Amalia. The greatest hits album Do Primeiro Fado Ao Último Tango was released in 2016 by Warner.

Pura Vida (Banda Sonora), released in April 2019, is the soundtrack of two difficult years where there was hell, hardness and passion.

Animal Sentimental (2022) was her last album.

More information: Mísia Musik

I sing what I want,
I have lost the fear of the judgment of others.

Mísia

'KRIGEN MED SVERIGE', NORWEGIAN INDEPENDENCE WAR

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Norwegian War of Independence, that began on a day like today in 1814.

The Swedish-Norwegian War, also known as the Campaign against Norway, War with Sweden 1814, in Norwegian Krigen med Sverige 1814, also called the War of Cats or the Norwegian War of Independence, was a war fought between Sweden and Norway in the summer of 1814.

According to the Treaty of Kiel, Norway would enter a union with Sweden under Charles XIII of Sweden. The war resulted in Norway being forced into the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, but with its own constitution and parliament. The war marked the last time Sweden participated in an armed conflict with another nation, and its conclusion signalled the beginning of the country's long period of military neutrality.

As early as in 1812, prior to the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, the Swedish Crown Prince Charles John (Karl Johan) -formerly Marshal of France Jean Baptiste Bernadotte- had entered into an agreement with Tsar Alexander I that Russia would support a Swedish attack on Norway in order to force Denmark-Norway to cede its northern part to Sweden.

The Swedish attack against Norway was postponed however, due to the fluid state of the conflict between Napoleon and the Sixth Coalition. The Swedish Army and, incidentally, Karl Johan's skills as a general, were urgently needed against France in Central Europe.

On 18 May 1813, Swedish troops re-occupied Swedish Pomerania and deployed against Napoleon's forces as a result of treaties between Karl Johan (on behalf of Sweden), Great Britain and Prussia, which ceded Norway to Sweden for its participation in the war, becoming effective after France and its allies (including Denmark-Norway) were defeated.

In early December, Karl Johan led an invasion of Denmark with his Allied Army of the North that included Swedes, Russians and North Germans. The Danes were outnumbered and were unable to mount a coherent defense against Karl Johan's battle-hardened army. Within a few days, the Danes were forced out of Holstein and into Jutland proper. 

By 14 December, Bernadotte agreed to an armistice and peace talks began in Kiel on the basis of ceding Norway to the Swedish king in return for Swedish Pomerania, additional territory in North Germany, specifics to be decided at the general peace conference following the cessation of hostilities between the Sixth Coalition and Imperial France, as well as 1,000,000 Riksdalers. The Danish position was hopeless and by early January 1814, King Frederick VI of Denmark-Norway reconciled himself to the necessity of losing Norway.

By the Treaty of Kiel, signed on 13 January, King Frederick VI had to cede the Kingdom of Norway to the king of Sweden, by which the two nations would enter a union. However, this treaty was not accepted by the Norwegian people, who refused to be simply a bargaining chip. Elements of the Danish government also covertly supported Norway's determination for independence.

Ultimately, Denmark would pay a catastrophic price for the treaty, as Karl Johan viewed this support, no matter how covert, as betrayal and a violation of the treaty, and this would later be reflected in the final peace settlement at the Congress of Vienna, which voided Kiel's promise to compensate Denmark for its loss of Norway with Swedish Pomerania, various additional Northern German territory, and 1,000,000 Riksdalers.

An insurrection broke out, led by Prince Cristian Frederick of Denmark, heir presumptive to the thrones of Denmark and Norway and Governor-general of Norway (and later King Christian VIII of Denmark). He gathered a constitutional assembly which adopted the liberal constitution of 17 May, with that constitution also electing Christian Frederick as king of an independent Norway.

As the head of the new state, Cristian Frederick desperately tried to gain support from the United Kingdom, or any of the other major powers within the Sixth Coalition, in order to maintain Norway's independence. However, the foreign diplomats refused to promise any outside support to the Norwegians.

The Norwegian Army mustered 30,000 men, and it had taken up positions away from the border with Sweden, in the fear of being outflanked. The Royal Norwegian Navy had few vessels, and most of them were stationed at the islands of Hvaler, close to Sweden.

The Swedish Army consisted of 45,000 well-equipped soldiers who were veterans of the German Campaign of 1813. The Swedish Navy had a number of large vessels and a capacity for moving and landing troops as well as assistance from the British Royal Navy.

The hostilities opened on 26 July with a swift Swedish naval attack against the Norwegian gunboats at Hvaler. The Norwegian army was evacuated and the vessels managed to escape, but they did not take part in the rest of the war. The main Swedish offensive came across the border at Halden, bypassing and surrounding the fortress of Fredriksten, and then continuing north, while a second force of 6,000 soldiers landed at Kråkerøy outside of Fredrikstad. This town surrendered the next day. This was the start of a pincer movement around the main part of the Norwegian army at Rakkestad.

On 10 August, Charles XIV John presented a proposal for a cease-fire. The proposal included a major concession -Charles XIV John, on behalf of the Swedish government as regent for his ill adopted father, accepted the Eidsvoll constitution. Negotiations started in Moss, Norway on 10 August, and after a few days of hard negotiations, a cease fire agreement, called the Convention of Moss, was signed on 14 August. Cristian Frederick was forced to abdicate as king of Norway, but Norway remained nominally independent within a personal union with Sweden, under the Swedish king. Its constitution was upheld with only such amendments as were required to allow it to enter into the union, and the two united kingdoms retained separate institutions, except for the king and the foreign service and policy.

More information: Forsvaret

Nationalism in Norway was very strong in 1905,
that we must be free of Sweden.
But I must say, I'm not 100 percent sure that was a wise decision.
We had the war; we were occupied by Germans from 1940 to '45.
And if there had been one Scandinavian country,
then it would not have been so very easy probably
to go ahead with the occupation.

Olav Thon

'MOTSTANDSBEVEGELSEN', THE NORWEGIAN RESISTANCE

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Norwegian Manifesto, that calls for nonviolent resistance to the German occupation, on a day like today in 1942.

The Norwegian resistance, in Norwegian Motstandsbevegelsen, to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms:

-Asserting the legitimacy of the exiled government, and by implication the lack of legitimacy of Vidkun Quisling's pro-Nazi regime and Josef Terboven's military administration

-The initial defence in Southern Norway, which was largely disorganised, but succeeded in allowing the government to escape capture

-The more organised military defence and counter-attacks in parts of Western and Northern Norway, aimed at securing strategic positions and the evacuation of the government

-Armed resistance, in the form of sabotage, commando raids, assassinations and other special operations during the occupation

-Civil disobedience and unarmed resistance

The Norwegian government of Prime Minister Johan Nygaardsvold, with the exception of foreign minister Halvdan Koht and minister of defence Birger Ljungberg, was largely caught by surprise when it became apparent in the early hours of 9 April 1940 that Nazi Germany had launched an invasion of Norway. Although some of the country's gold reserve had already been removed from Oslo, there were few contingency plans for such an invasion.

The Norwegian government was unprepared and unwilling to capitulate to the ultimatum timed to coincide with the arrival of German troops and delivered by Curt Bräuer, the German representative in Oslo. The German demand that Norway accept the protection of the Reich was rebuffed by Koht and the Norwegian government before dawn had broken on the morning of invasion. Vi gir oss ikke frivillig, kampen er allerede i gang, replied Koht. We will not submit voluntarily; the struggle is already underway.

Anticipating German efforts to capture the government, the entire Norwegian parliament (the Storting), the royal family, and cabinet hastily evacuated Oslo by train and car to Hamar and then on to Elverum, where an extraordinary session of parliament was called. In large part because of the presence of mind of the parliament's president C. J. Hambro, the Storting managed to pass an emergency measure (known as the Elverum Authorization) that gave full authority to the king and his cabinet until the Storting could convene again.

This gave King Haakon VII and the cabinet constitutional authority to reject the German emissary's ultimatum to accept the German invasion. Although there were several German attempts to capture or kill the King and the Norwegian government, they managed to evade these attempts and travelled through Norway's remote interior until leaving the country for London on the British heavy cruiser HMS Devonshire on 7 June.

More information: The Cross Section

Reserving the constitutional legitimacy of the Norwegian government also undermined Vidkun Quisling's attempts at claiming the Norwegian government for himself. After Quisling had proclaimed his assumption of the government, several individuals on the Supreme Court took the initiative to establish an Administrative Council (Administrasjonsrådet) in an effort to stop him. This became a controversial initiative, in that the legitimate Norwegian government refused to give the council any legal backing, and the German authorities ended up disbanding it.

Although some politicians across the political spectrum had advocated strengthening the country's defence capabilities, a longstanding policy of disarmament following World War I had left the Norwegian military underfunded and undertrained by the late 1930s. As a result, forces in Southern Norway were largely unprepared for the German invasion, and the invading German army met little initial resistance.

There was also spirited defence seen at other locations, including Midtskogen, Hegra and Narvik but these were largely the result of improvised missions by isolated military units and irregular volunteers. The battles slowed the German advance by several days, allowing the Norwegian government to evade capture and conduct critical constitutional business.

The British and French began landing on Norwegian soil within a week of the German invasion.

The first mass outbreak of civil disobedience occurred in the autumn of 1940, when students of Oslo University began to wear paper clips on their lapels to demonstrate their resistance to the German occupiers and their Norwegian collaborators. A seemingly innocuous item, the paper clip was a symbol of solidarity and unity (we are bound together), implying resistance. The wearing of paper clips, the popular H7 monogram and similar symbols (red garments, Bobble hats) was outlawed and could lead to arrest and punishment.

Of lesser military importance was the distribution of illegal newspapers (often with news items culled from Allied news broadcasts; possession of radios was illegal). The purpose of this was twofold: it counteracted Nazi propaganda, and it maintained nationalistic, anti-German feelings in the population at large. It has been suggested that combating the illegal press expended German resources out of proportion to the illegal media's actual effects.

Finally, there was the attempt at maintaining an ice front against the German soldiers. This involved, among other things, never speaking to a German if it could be avoided (many pretended to speak no German, though it was then almost as prevalent as English is now) and refusing to sit beside a German on public transport. The latter was so annoying to the occupying German authorities that it became illegal to stand on a bus if seats were available.

Nazi authorities (both German and Norwegian) attempted to pressure school teachers into supporting the regime and its propaganda. Wages were withheld, and on 20 March 1942, 1100 male teachers were arrested, of which 642 were sent to Arctic Norway doing forced labour.

Towards the end of the war, the resistance became more open, with rudimentary military organizations set up in the forests around the larger cities. A number of Nazi collaborators and officials were killed, and those collaborating with the German or Quisling authorities were ostracized, both during and after the war.

The Norwegian Resistance Museum, at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, gives a good account of the activities of the Norwegian resistance movement.

More information: Kultur Forsvaret

Norway was occupied by the Germans
in the Second World War,
and I've met a lot of people who had to live
through that occupation in varying degrees.

Christopher Heyerdahl

1969, APOLLO 11 SPLASHES DOWN IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Apolo 11, the American spaceflight that splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, on a day like today in 1969.

Apollo 11 (July 16-24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. 

Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC.

Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing. Armstrong and Aldrin collected 21.5 kg of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes before lifting off to rejoin Columbia.

Apollo 11 was launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16 at 13:32 UTC, and it was the fifth crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program.

The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages -a descent stage for landing on the Moon and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit.

After being sent to the Moon by the Saturn V's third stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20. The astronauts used Eagle's ascent stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the command module. They jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that propelled Columbia out of the last of its 30 lunar orbits onto a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24 after more than eight days in space.

Armstrong's first step onto the lunar surface was broadcast on live TV to a worldwide audience. He described the event as one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

Apollo 11 effectively proved U.S. victory in the Space Race to demonstrate spaceflight superiority, by fulfilling a national goal proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

Project Apollo was abruptly halted by the Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967, in which astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee died, and the subsequent investigation.

In October 1968, Apollo 7 evaluated the command module in Earth orbit, and in December Apollo 8 tested it in lunar orbit.

In March 1969, Apollo 9 put the lunar module through its paces in Earth orbit, and in May Apollo 10 conducted a dress rehearsal in lunar orbit. By July 1969, all was in readiness for Apollo 11 to take the final step onto the Moon.

The Soviet Union appeared to be winning the Space Race by beating the US to firsts, but its early lead was overtaken by the US Gemini program and Soviet failure to develop the N1 launcher, which would have been comparable to the Saturn V.

The Soviets tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of uncrewed probes. On July 13, three days before Apollo 11's launch, the Soviet Union launched Luna 15, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the Moon's surface to begin their voyage home. The Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories radio telescope in England recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and these were released in July 2009 for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.

More information: NASA

That's one small step for a man,
one giant leap for mankind.

 

Neil Armstrong

MOVIETONE SOUND SYSTEM, SOUND ONTO FILM IN 1926

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Movietone sound system, the Fox Film optical sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures, whose patent was bought on a day like today in 1926.

The Movietone sound system is an optical sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures, ensuring synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures. The initial version of this system was capable of a frequency response of 8500 Hz.

Although modern sound films use variable-area tracks instead, modern motion picture theaters (excluding those that have transitioned to digital cinema) can play a Movietone film without modification to the projector (though if the projector's sound unit has been fitted with red LED or laser light sources, the reproduction quality from a variable density track will be significantly impaired).

Movietone was one of four motion picture sound systems under development in the U.S. during the 1920s. The others were DeForest's Phonofilm, Warner Brothers' Vitaphone, and RCA Photophone. However, Phonofilm was principally an early version of Movietone.

In 1916, Theodore Case established a laboratory to research the photoelectric properties of materials. As a student, he developed an interest in using modulated light to record sound. He created the Thalofide cell, a sensitive photocell which was utilized by the U.S. Navy during and for some years after World War I as part of an infrared communication system.

In 1922, Case and his assistant, Earl I. Sponable, shifted their focus to talking pictures. During that year, Case was approached by Lee de Forest, who had been trying since 1919 to develop an optical soundtrack for motion picture film in a system he called Phonofilm. De Forest was not having much success and sought help from Case.

From 1922 to 1925, Case and de Forest collaborated in developing the Phonofilm system. Among Case's other inventions, he contributed the Thalofide photocell and the Aeo-light, a light source that could be easily modulated by audio signals and could finally be utilized to expose the soundtrack in the film of sound cameras.

In 1925, Case terminated his partnership with de Forest due to de Forest's habit of claiming sole credit for the Phonofilm system, despite most of critical inventions originating from Case. Documents supporting this, including a signed letter by De Forest that states that Phonofilms are only possible because of the inventions of Case Research Lab, are located at the Case Research Lab Museum in Auburn, New York.

In 1925, therefore, Case and Sponable continued developing their system, which they now called Movietone.

More information: Google

Since 1924, Sponable focused on designing single-system cameras that could record both sound and pictures on the same negative. He requested Bell & Howell to modify one of their cameras according to his design, but the results were unsatisfactory. As a result, the Wall machine shop in Syracuse, New York was tasked with rebuilding this camera, and the results were significantly improved.

Subsequently, Wall Camera Corporation produced numerous single-system 35mm cameras, which eventually led to the later development of the three-film Cinerama widescreen cameras in the 1950s. Initially, Wall converted some Bell & Howell Design 2709 cameras to single-system, but most were designed and produced by Wall. Single-system cameras were also made by Mitchell Camera Corporation during World War II for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, although these cameras were relatively rare.

The aspect ratio of approximately 1.19:1 was introduced when single-system camera technology was developed. This technology printed an optical soundtrack on top of the 35mm full aperture, which was colloquially referred to as the Movietone ratio. This ratio was widely used by Hollywood and European studios (apart from those that adopted sound-on-disc) between the late 1920s and May 1932. 

In May 1932, the Academy ratio of 1.37:1 was introduced, effectively restoring the original frame shape of the silent era.

In the 1950s, the first 35mm kinescope camera with sound-on-film was introduced by Photo-Sonics. This camera featured a Davis Loop Drive mechanism built within the camera box, which was essential for TV network time-shifting before the use of videotape. The sound galvanometer, made by RCA, was designed to produce good to excellent results when the kinescope film negative was projected, thereby avoiding the need to make a print before the delayed replay. Western Electric developed the Davis mechanism.

After parting ways with de Forest, Case made changes to the Movietone projector soundhead by positioning it below the picture head, with a sound-picture offset of approximately 370 mm (close to the present-day standard). This was a departure from the previous practice in Phonofilm, where the soundhead was placed above the picture head. Case also adopted the 24 frames/sec speed for Movietone, aligning it with the speed already chosen for the Western Electric Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. This established 24 frames/sec as the standard speed for all sound films, whether sound-on-disc or sound-on-film and has remained the standard speed for professional sound films with a few exceptions.

At this point, Case and Sponable's Movietone system was adopted by the AMPAS as the academy's standard. It was interchangeable with the later RCA Photophone system in most respects. For technical details and lists of the industry adopters, please refer to RCA Photophone.

The commercial use of Movietone began when William Fox of the Fox Film Corporation purchased the entire system, including the patents, in July 1926. Despite Fox owning the Case patents, the work of Freeman Harrison Owens, and the American rights to the German Tri-Ergon patents, the Movietone sound film system utilized only the inventions of Case Research Lab.

More information: Chester Cinemas

Cinema is a great medium for creating 

a dream world and entering into it.

Lynne Ramsay

S. E. HINTON, WRITING 'THE OUTSIDERS' IN HIGH SCHOOL

Today, The Grandma has been reading The Outsiders, an amazing novel written by Susan E. Hinton, the American writer from Oklahoma, who was born on a day like today in 1948.

Susan Eloise Hinton (born July 22, 1948) is an American writer best known for her young-adult novels (YA) set in Oklahoma, especially The Outsiders (1967), which she wrote during high school. Hinton is credited with introducing the YA genre.

In 1988, she received the inaugural Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her cumulative contribution in writing for teens.

While still in her teens, Hinton became a household name as the author of The Outsiders, her first and most popular novel, set in Oklahoma in the 1960s. She began writing it in 1965. The book was inspired by two rival gangs at her school, Will Rogers High School, the Greasers and the Socs, and her desire to empathize with the Greasers by writing from their point of view. She wrote the novel when she was 16 and it was published in 1967. Since then, the book has sold more than 14 million copies.

In 2017, Viking Press stated the book sells over 500,000 copies a year.

Hinton's publisher suggested she use her initials instead of her feminine given names so that the first male book reviewers would not dismiss the novel because its author was female. After the success of The Outsiders, Hinton chose to continue writing and publishing using her initials because she did not want to lose what she had made famous and to allow her to keep her private and public lives separate.

In interviews, Hinton has said that she is a private person and an introvert who no longer does public appearances. She enjoys reading (Jane Austen, Mary Renault, and F. Scott Fitzgerald), taking classes at the local university, and horseback riding. Hinton also revealed to Vulture that she enjoys writing fan fiction.

She resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her husband David Inhofe, a software engineer she met in her freshman biology class at college. He is a cousin of former Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe.

The film adaptations The Outsiders (March 1983) and Rumble Fish (October 1983) were both directed by Francis Ford Coppola; Hinton cowrote the script for Rumble Fish with Coppola. Also adapted to film were Tex (July 1982), directed by Tim Hunter, and That Was Then... This Is Now (November 1985), directed by Christopher Cain. Hinton herself acted as a location scout, and she had cameo roles in three of the four films. She plays a nurse in Dallas's hospital room in The Outsiders. In Tex, she is the typing teacher. She also appears as a sex worker propositioning Rusty James in Rumble Fish. 

In 2009, Hinton portrayed the school principal in The Legend of Billy Fail.

Hinton received the inaugural 1988 Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American YA librarians, citing her first four YA novels, which had been published from 1967 to 1979 and adapted as films from 1982 to 1985. The annual award recognizes one author of books published in the U.S., and specified works taken to heart by young adults over a period of years, providing an 'authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives'. The librarians noted that in reading Hinton's novels a young adult may explore the need for independence and simultaneously the need for loyalty and belonging, the need to care for others, and the need to be cared for by them.

In 1992, she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa by the University of Tulsa, and in 1998 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame at the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers of Oklahoma State University–Tulsa.

More information: The Outsiders Fan Club

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S.E. Hinton published in 1967 by Viking Press. The book details the conflict between two rival gangs of White Americans divided by their socioeconomic status: the working-class "Greasers" and the upper-middle-class "Socs" (short for Socials). The story is told in first-person perspective by teenage protagonist Ponyboy Curtis, and takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1965, although this is never explicitly stated in the book.

Hinton began writing the novel when she was 15 and wrote the bulk of it when she was 16 and a junior in high school. She was 18 when the book was published. She released the work using her initials rather than her feminine given names (Susan Eloise) so that her gender would not lead male book reviewers to dismiss the work.

A film adaptation was produced in 1983 by Francis Ford Coppola, and a short-lived television series appeared in 1990, picking up where the movie left off. A dramatic stage adaptation was written by Christopher Sergel and published in 1990. A Tony Award-winning stage musical adaptation of the same name premiered on Broadway in 2024.

More information: Spark Notes

Anything you read can influence your work,
so I try to read good stuff.

Susan E. Hinton

ERLING BRAUT HAALAND, THE NORWEGIAN FOOTBALLER

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Erling Haaland the Norwegian professional footballer, who was born on a day like today in 2000.

Erling Braut Haaland (né Håland; born 21 July 2000) is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Manchester City and the Norway national team.

Considered one of the best players in the world, he is known for his speed, strength, positioning, and finishing inside the box. In his debut Premier League season, Haaland broke the record for the most goals scored by a player in a single season, with 36.

Coming through the youth system, Haaland played for Norwegian sides Bryne and Molde, before relocating to Austria with Red Bull Salzburg in January 2019. His performances there earned him a move to Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund, where he won the DFB-Pokal in 2021.

In the summer of 2022, he transferred to Manchester City for a fee of €60 million (£51.2 million), and was instrumental in the club winning a continental treble in his debut campaign; his 52 goals across all competitions was the most ever for a Premier League player. Haaland was named the league's Young Player and Player of the Season, becoming the first player to win both awards in the same year.

Haaland has won several individual awards and broken various records during his career, including the 2020 Golden Boy award, while in 2021 he was named Bundesliga Player of the Season, in addition to his inclusion in the FIFA FIFPro World11 for 2021, 2022 and 2023. He has also broken multiple Premier League records, including most goals scored in a season, the quickest individual to score two, three, four and five hat-tricks, and the first in league history to score hat-tricks in three consecutive home games. 

In 2023, he won the Premier League Golden Boot, the European Golden Shoe and the Gerd Müller Trophy for his goalscoring success. In the same year, his performances led him to be named UEFA Men's Player of the Year, IFFHS World's Best Player and finish runner-up in the Ballon d'Or.

Haaland has represented Norway at various youth levels. In the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup, he won the tournament's Golden Boot after scoring a record nine goals in a single match. He made his senior international debut in September 2019, and is currently the nation's second-highest all-time top goalscorer.

Haaland was born on 21 July 2000 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, as his father Alfie Haaland was playing for Leeds United in the Premier League at the time.

In 2004, at the age of three, he moved to Bryne, his parents' hometown in Norway.

Haaland started in the academy of his hometown club Bryne at the age of five.

On 1 February 2017, Molde announced the signing of 16-year-old Haaland.

On 19 August 2018, Austrian Bundesliga champions Red Bull Salzburg announced that Haaland would join the club on 1 January 2019, signing a five-year contract.

Despite being a reported target of Manchester United and Juventus, Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund confirmed the signing of Haaland on 29 December 2019, three days before the winter transfer window opened, for a fee reported to be in the region of €20 million, signing a four-and-a-half-year contract.

On 10 May, Dortmund announced that Haaland would be leaving at the end of the season to sign for Premier League club Manchester City.

A prolific goalscorer and widely regarded as one of the best players in the world, Haaland has all the attributes of a complete centre-forward. He uses his sizeable frame to hold play up effectively and involve others. He has the pace and clever movement to run in behind, he can dribble and create, and he can finish with both feet and his head. He usually comes deep to collect the ball to help his team build play, often looking to spread the ball wide for a teammate, before turning and sprinting towards goal.

More informarion: Instagram-Erling Haaland

Every day provides a new opportunity to get even better.
Basically, it's a matter of mentality.

Erling Haaland

SKARA BRAE, THE SCOTS HEART OF NEOLITHIC ORKNEY

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of Joseph de Ca'th Lon, one of her closest friends. 

Joseph loves Archaeology and thay have been talking about Skara Brae, the stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill in Scotland.

Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, the largest island in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. 

It consisted of ten clustered houses, made of flagstones, in earthen dams that provided support for the walls; the houses included stone hearths, beds, and cupboards. A primitive sewer system, with toilets and drains in each house, included water used to flush waste into a drain and out to the ocean.

The site was occupied from roughly 3180 BC to about 2500 BC and is Europe's most complete Neolithic village. 

Skara Brae gained UNESCO World Heritage Site status as one of four sites making up The Heart of Neolithic Orkney. Older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza, it has been called the Scottish Pompeii because of its excellent preservation.

Care of the site is the responsibility of Historic Environment Scotland which works with partners in managing the site: Orkney Islands Council, NatureScot (Scottish Natural Heritage), and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Visitors to the site are welcome during much of the year.

Uncovered by a storm in 1850, the coastal site may now be at risk from climate change.

In the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll; the name Skara Brae is a corruption of Skerrabra or Styerrabrae, which originally referred to the knoll. When the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village consisting of several small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, a son of the local laird who was a self-taught geologist, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after four houses were uncovered, work was abandoned in 1868.

The site remained undisturbed until 1913, when during a single weekend, the site was plundered by a party with shovels who took away an unknown quantity of artifacts.

In 1924, another storm swept away part of one of the houses, and it was determined the site should be secured and properly investigated. The job was given to the University of Edinburgh's Professor V. Gordon Childe, who travelled to Skara Brae for the first time in mid-1927.

The inhabitants of Skara Brae were makers and users of grooved ware, a distinctive style of pottery that had recently appeared in northern Scotland. The houses used earth sheltering: built sunk in the ground, into mounds of prehistoric domestic waste known as middens. This provided the houses with stability and also acted as insulation against Orkney's harsh winter climate. On average, each house measures 40 square metres with a large square room containing a stone hearth used for heating and cooking. 

Given the number of homes, it seems likely that no more than fifty people lived in Skara Brae at any given time.The dwellings contain several stone-built pieces of furniture, including cupboards, dressers, seats, and storage boxes. Each dwelling was entered through a low doorway with a stone slab door which could be shut by a bar made of bone that slid in bar-holes cut in the stone door jambs. 

Several dwellings offered a small connected antechamber, offering access to a partially covered stone drain leading away from the village. It is suggested that these chambers served as indoor privies.

The site provided the earliest known record of the human flea (Pulex irritans) in Europe.

The Grooved Ware People who built Skara Brae were primarily pastoralists who raised cattle, pig and sheep. Childe originally believed that the inhabitants did not farm, but excavations in 1972 unearthed seed grains from a midden suggesting that barley was cultivated. Fish bones and shells are common in the midden indicating that dwellers ate seafood. Limpet shells are standard and may have been fish bait that was kept in stone boxes in the homes. The boxes were formed from thin slabs with joints carefully sealed with clay to render them waterproof.

A number of enigmatic carved stone balls have been found at the site and some are on display in the museum. Similar objects have been found throughout northern Scotland.

The Heart of Neolithic Orkney was inscribed as a World Heritage site in December 1999. In addition to Skara Brae the site includes Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stenness and other nearby sites.

More information: Historic Environment Scotland

In archaeology, context is the basis of many discoveries
that are imputed to the deliberate workings of intelligence.
If I find a rock chipped in such a way as to give it a sharp edge,
and the discovery is made in a cave,
I am seduced into ascribing this to tool use by distant,
fetid and furry ancestors.

Seth Shostak