MT LAMINGTON, THE VOLCANO IN PAPUA & NEW GUINEA

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Mount Lamington, the volcano in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea, that erupted on a day like today in 1951.

Mount Lamington is an andesitic stratovolcano in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea. The forested peak of the volcano had not been recognised as such until its devastating eruption in 1951 that caused about 3,000 deaths. The volcano rises to 1680 meters above the coastal plain north of the Owen Stanley Range. A summit complex of lava domes and crater remnants rises above a low-angle base of volcaniclastic deposits that are dissected by radial valleys. A prominent broad avalanche valley extends northward from the breached crater.

The mountain was named after Charles Cochrane-Baillie, 2nd Baron Lamington who was Governor of Queensland.

In early January 1951, a series of minor explosions and earthquakes rocked Mount Lamington, a volcano in Oro Province, Territory of Papua and New Guinea. Prior to the eruption, Mount Lamington was not recognized as a volcano due to the absence of historically-recorded eruptions and dense vegetation cover.

From January 15, volcanic activity intensified, and tall eruption plumes were generated. The largest eruption occurred on the morning of January 21 when a thick black plume of ash rose  15,000 m into the atmosphere.

The eruption collapsed a lava dome and produced a lethal pyroclastic flow that killed 2,942 people. In the years after the eruption, new lava domes formed and collapsed in succession. Activity persisted until July 1956. The eruption is the deadliest natural disaster in Australian history, as the region was under the rule of the Government of Australia.

Volcanism in Papua New Guinea is due to the ongoing subduction of oceanic crust beneath the island due to plate tectonics. 

Mount Lamington is situated within the Hydrographers Range; a small, forested coastal mountain range. The mountain range is the remnant of a heavily eroded Quaternary stratovolcano.

The dominant rock types are andesite and basaltic andesite. While a majority of the range's eruptive history occurred during the Pleistocene, the presence of cinder cones and craters on the southern flank of the range suggest volcanism also took place during the Holocene. The mountain lies adjacent to the Owen Stanley Range. Nearby volcanoes include Mount Suckling and Mount Victory.

More information: Volcano Hotspot

Mount Lamington rises to a height of 1,680 meters above the coastal flats north of the Owen Stanley Range. A summit complex of lava domes and crater remnants rises above a low-angle base of volcaniclastic deposits that are dissected by radial valleys. A prominent broad avalanche valley extends northward from the breached crater. The horseshoe-shaped crater was the result of a large prehistoric sector collapse.

Prior to the eruption in 1951, Mount Lamington was not known by locals to be an active volcano as no widespread ancient folklore or stories of the volcano existed among the native population. The only indication of volcanic activity was a small hot spring on the northern slopes, which was not known by most of the native population.

There were also settlements located on the flank of the volcano. A weak hint of its volcanic nature was a traditional story, related to the volcano's activity, of a lake on the summit which exploded, destroying villages and killing many people. The native population regards the mountain as a sacred and spiritual place.

Geologists however, understood that Mount Lamington and the Hydrographers Range were volcanic in origin, and that it was a geologically young feature. A geologist from the Netherlands classified Mount Lamington an active volcano. Only three eruptions were confirmed in the Holocene.

A number of inhabitants around Mount Lamington reported earthquakes in early January 1951. One eyewitness also saw a strange light on New Year's Day of 1951.

More information: PNGAA

On the morning of January 15, residents saw evidence of landslides in the crater wall of the volcano. Landslide scars identified as streaks of brown in the heavily forested volcano flank indicated the volcano was active. At a rubber plantation in Sangara, a village, a person reported white smoke or vapour cloud rising from the base of the volcano. Around the crater, vegetation was killed by the intense heat emitted from the ground.

The following day, January 16, a vapour cloud was seen from Higaturu. Large landslides were reported, many destroying the existing vegetation. The entire rainforest around the crater was destroyed by the late afternoon. An earthquake swarm occurred at 16:00. Up to 30 earthquakes were felt till 08:00 on January 17. Stronger earthquakes were felt in Isivita Mission, located northwest of the crater.

On January 17, an ash column rising between some hills and Mount Lamington was observed. The column grew larger as the hours passed. Earthquakes continued to be felt, and there was a red glow observed at night. By January 18, large plumes of dark grey ash ejected from the volcano. A large explosion occurred in the morning. A newly-constructed volcanic hill where volcanic material escaped was observed. The eruptions did not cause any human deaths, according to District Commissioner Cecil Cowley on January 19. Large columns of ash rising 6,100-7,600 m could be observed from Popondetta.

From Kokoda, the eruption was described as a large black column, and had a shape reminiscent of a cauliflower. Monsoon winds caused heavy ashfall on the southern side of the volcano. Some settlements where the Orokaiva people lived were damaged.

The most violent eruption occurred four days later at 10:40 local time. Occupants on two Qantas Empire Airways flights which flew in close proximity to the erupting volcano reported a large eruption column and base surge of pyroclastic debris. The captain of a Douglas DC3 flight witnessed a massive continuous column of black smoke erupting from the crater. The column rose over 4,300 m, punching through a layer of clouds. In two minutes, the column had risen 12,000 m from the crater, and expanded into a mushroom column. The captain of the DC 3 radioed authorities at Port Moresby about the sequence of events. Another Qantas flight; a de Havilland Dragon bound for Popondetta from Lae, was about to land when its occupants witnessed the side of volcano blow itself apart. A large surge of debris approached the aircraft, forcing its return to Lae.

The post-January 21 eruptive phase consisted of explosive eruptions which produced pyroclastic flows. A large pyroclastic flow was documented on March 5, 1951. After the climactic eruption on January 21, a new lava dome formed in the crater. The new lava dome grew to fill the crater. 

From 1951 to 1953, new lava domes formed and collapsed, generating more pyroclastic flows. The dome eventually attained a height of 450 metres from the crater floor to its summit and had a volume of 0.2 km3. A lava spine emerged from the dome and grew to a height of 150 m. Lava spines continuously formed and were destroyed over a five-year period.

Rough estimates of the death toll appeared as early as 23 January which suggested 4,000 deaths. A thorough count did not happen because bodies were buried within days to weeks of the disaster. Port Moresby officials conveyed to the Department of External Territories; 3,466 people dead or missing. An administration official in Port Moresby performed an investigation of the local population from August to October and concluded that 2,907 people died. The total death toll amounted to 2,942.

More information: Smithsonian Institution-Global Volcanism Program

People never believe in volcanoes
until the lava actually overtakes them.

George Santayana

FEDERICO FELLINI, THE GREATEST LAUREATED FILMMAKER

Today, The Grandma has been watching some films directed by Federico Fellini, the Italian filmmaker, who was born on a day like today in 1920.

Federico Fellini (20 January 1920-31 October 1993) was an Italian filmmaker. He is known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. His films have ranked highly in critical polls such as that of Cahiers du Cinéma and Sight & Sound, which lists his 1963 film 8+1⁄2 as the 10th-greatest film.

Fellini's best-known films include I vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), 8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), Amarcord (1973), and Fellini's Casanova (1976).

Fellini was nominated for 17 Academy Awards over the course of his career, winning a total of four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film (the most for any director in the history of the award). He received an honourary award for Lifetime Achievement at the 65th Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

Fellini also won the Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita in 1960, two times the Moscow International Film Festival in 1963 and 1987, and the Career Golden Lion at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival in 1985.

In Sight & Sound's 2002 list of the greatest directors of all time, Fellini was ranked 2nd in the directors' poll and 7th in the critics' poll.

More information: MUBI

Fellini was born on 20 January 1920, to middle-class parents in Rimini, then a small town on the Adriatic Sea. On 25 January, at the San Nicolò church he was baptized Federico Domenico Marcello Fellini.

In September 1939, he enrolled in law school at the Sapienza University of Rome to please his parents.

Retained on business in Rimini, Urbano sent wife and family to Rome in 1940 to share an apartment with his son. Fellini and Ruggero Maccari, also on the staff of Marc'Aurelio, began writing radio sketches and gags for films.

Not yet twenty and with Fabrizi's help, Fellini obtained his first screen credit as a comedy writer on Mario Mattoli's Il pirata sono io (The Pirate's Dream).

Writing for radio while attempting to avoid the draft, Fellini met his future wife Giulietta Masina in a studio office at the Italian public radio broadcaster EIAR in the autumn of 1942.

After the Allied liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944, Fellini and Enrico De Seta opened the Funny Face Shop where they survived the postwar recession drawing caricatures of American soldiers. 

He became involved with Italian Neorealism when Roberto Rossellini, at work on Stories of Yesteryear (later Rome, Open City), met Fellini in his shop, and proposed he contribute gags and dialogue for the script.

In 1950 Fellini co-produced and co-directed with Alberto Lattuada Variety Lights (Luci del varietà), his first feature film.

In 1953, I Vitelloni found favour with the critics and public. Winning the Silver Lion Award in Venice, it secured Fellini his first international distributor.

More information: The Fade Out

Changing the title of the screenplay to La Dolce Vita, Fellini soon clashed with his producer on casting: The director insisted on the relatively unknown Mastroianni while De Laurentiis wanted Paul Newman as a hedge on his investment. La Dolce Vita broke all box office records.

A major discovery for Fellini after his Italian neorealism period (1950-1959) was the work of Carl Jung.

Organized by his publisher Diogenes Verlag in 1982, the first major exhibition of 63 drawings by Fellini was held in Paris, Brussels, and the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York.

In July 1991 and April 1992, Fellini worked in close collaboration with Canadian filmmaker Damian Pettigrew to establish the longest and most detailed conversations ever recorded on film. Described as the Maestro's spiritual testament by his biographer Tullio Kezich, excerpts culled from the conversations later served as the basis of their feature documentary, Fellini: I'm a Born Liar (2002) and the book, I'm a Born Liar: A Fellini Lexicon.

In April 1993, Fellini received his fifth Oscar, for lifetime achievement, in recognition of his cinematic accomplishments that have thrilled and entertained audiences worldwide.

Fellini died in Rome on 31 October 1993 at the age of 73.

Personal and highly idiosyncratic visions of society, Fellini's films are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire. The adjectives Fellinian and Felliniesque are synonymous with any kind of extravagant, fanciful, even baroque image in the cinema and in art in general.

La Dolce Vita contributed the term paparazzi to the English language, derived from Paparazzo, the photographer friend of journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni).

More information: The Beaver

All art is autobiographical.
The pearl is the oyster's autobiography.

Federico Fellini

PAUL CÉZANNE, FRENCH POST-IMPRESSIONIST PAINTING

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Paul Cézanne, the French Post-Impressionist painter, who was born on a day like today in 1839.

Paul Cézanne (19 January 1839-22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation and influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century. 

Cézanne is said to have formed the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and early 20th century Cubism.

While his early works are still influenced by Romanticism -such as the murals in the Jas de Bouffan country house- and Realism, Cézanne arrived at a new pictorial language through intensive examination of Impressionist forms of expression. He altered conventional approaches to perspective and broke established rules of academic art by emphasizing the underlying structure of objects in a composition and the formal qualities of art.

Cézanne strived for a renewal of traditional design methods on the basis of the impressionistic colour space and colour modulation principles.

Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects. Both Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne is the father of us all.

His painting provoked incomprehension and ridicule in contemporary art criticism. Until the late 1890s it was mainly fellow artists such as Camille Pissarro and the art dealer and gallery owner Ambroise Vollard who discovered Cézanne's work and were among the first to buy his paintings.

In 1895, Vollard opened the first solo exhibition in his Paris gallery, which led to a broader examination of the artist's work.

More information: Paul Cezánne

Paul Cézanne was born the son of the milliner and later banker Louis-Auguste Cézanne and Anne-Elisabeth-Honorine Aubert at 28 rue de l'Opera in Aix-en-Provence.

Cézanne moved to Paris in April 1861. The high hopes he had set in Paris were not fulfilled, as he had applied to the École des Beaux-Arts and was turned down. He attended the free Académie Suisse, where he was able to devote himself to life drawing.

On 31 May 1870, Cézanne was best man at Zola's wedding in Paris. During the Franco-Prussian War, Cézanne and Hortense Fiquet lived in the fishing village of L'Estaque near Marseille, which Cézanne would later visit and paint frequently, as the place's Mediterranean atmosphere fascinated him. He avoided conscription for military service. Although Cézanne had been denounced as a deserter in January 1871, he managed to hide. No further details are known as documents from this period are missing.

In 1901, Cézanne acquired a piece of land north of the city of Aix-en-Provence along the Chemin des Lauves, an isolated road on some high ground, where he had his studio built on the Chemin des Lauves in 1902 according to his needs (Atelier de Cézanne, now open to the public). He moved there in 1903.

For large-format paintings such as The Bathers, which he created in the Les Lauves studio, he had a long, narrow gap in the wall built through which natural light could flow. That year Zola died, leaving Cézanne in mourning despite the estrangement. His health deteriorated with age; In addition to his diabetes, he suffered from depression in old age, which manifested itself in growing distrust of his fellow human beings to the point of delusions of persecution.

Cézanne's early work is often concerned with the figure in the landscape and includes many paintings of groups of large, heavy figures in the landscape, imaginatively painted. Later in his career, he became more interested in working from direct observation and gradually developed a light, airy painting style.

Nevertheless, in Cézanne's mature work there is the development of a solidified, almost architectural style of painting. Throughout his life he struggled to develop an authentic observation of the seen world by the most accurate method of representing it in paint that he could find. To this end, he structurally ordered whatever he perceived into simple forms and colour planes. His statement I want to make of impressionism something solid and lasting like the art in the museums, and his contention that he was recreating Poussin after nature underscored his desire to unite observation of nature with the permanence of classical composition.

More information: The Art Story

 It's so fine and yet so terrible to stand
in front of a blank canvas.

Paul Cezanne

1896, THE X-RAY GENERATING MACHINE IS EXHIBITED

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the X-ray machine, that was exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith in 1896.

An X-ray machine is a device that uses X-rays for a variety of applications including medicine, X-ray fluorescence, electronic assembly inspection, and measurement of material thickness in manufacturing operations. 

In medical applications, X-ray machines are used by radiographers to acquire X-ray images of the internal structures of living organisms, and also in sterilization.

An X-ray generator generally contains an X-ray tube to produce the X-rays. Possibly, radioisotopes can also be used to generate X-rays.

An X-ray tube is a simple vacuum tube that contains a cathode, which directs a stream of electrons into a vacuum, and an anode, which collects the electrons and is made of tungsten to evacuate the heat generated by the collision. When the electrons collide with the target, about 1% of the resulting energy is emitted as X-rays, with the remaining 99% released as heat. Due to the high energy of the electrons that reach relativistic speeds the target is usually made of tungsten even if other material can be used particularly in XRF applications.

An X-ray generator also needs to contain a cooling system to cool the anode; many X-ray generators use water or oil recirculating systems.

In medical imaging applications, an X-ray machine has a control console that is used by a radiologic technologist to select X-ray techniques suitable for the specific exam, a power supply that creates and produces the desired kVp (peak kilovoltage), mA (milliamperes, sometimes referred to as mAs which is actually mA multiplied by the desired exposure length) for the X-ray tube, and the X-ray tube itself.

The discovery of X-rays came from experimenting with Crookes tubes, an early experimental electrical discharge tube invented by English physicist William Crookes around 1869–1875. 

In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays emanating from Crookes tubes and the many uses for X-rays were immediately apparent. One of the first X-ray photographs was made of the hand of Röntgen's wife. The image displayed both her wedding ring and bones.

On January 18, 1896 an X-ray machine was formally displayed by Henry Louis Smith. A fully functioning unit was introduced to the public at the 1904 World's Fair by Clarence Dally. The technology developed quickly: In 1909 Mónico Sánchez Moreno had produced the first portable medical device and during World War I Marie Curie led the development of X-ray machines mounted in radiological cars to provide mobile X-ray services for military field hospitals.

In the 1940s and 1950s, X-ray machines were used in stores to help sell footwear. These were known as Shoe-fitting fluoroscopes. However, as the harmful effects of X-ray radiation were properly considered, they finally fell out of use. Shoe-fitting use of the device was first banned by the state of Pennsylvania in 1957. They were more a clever marketing tool to attract customers, rather than a fitting aid. Together with Robert J. Van de Graaff, John G. Trump developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators.

An X-ray imaging system consists of a generator control console where the operator selects desired techniques to obtain a quality readable image (kVp, mA and exposure time), an x-ray generator which controls the x-ray tube current, x-ray tube kilovoltage and x-ray emitting exposure time, an X-ray tube that converts the kilovoltage and mA into actual x-rays and an image detection system which can be either a film (analog technology) or a digital capture system and a PACS.

X-ray machines are used in health care for visualising bone structures, during surgeries (especially orthopedic) to assist surgeons in reattaching broken bones with screws or structural plates, assisting cardiologists in locating blocked arteries and guiding stent placements or performing angioplasties and for other dense tissues such as tumours. Non-medicinal applications include security and material analysis.

More information: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Health care has a lot of interesting machine
-learning problems -outpatient outcomes,
or when you have x-ray images
and you want to predict things.

Jeff Dean

1641, LA JUNTA DE BRAÇOS & THE CATALAN REPUBLIC

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Junta de Braços, the parliamentary assembly of the Principality of Catalonia, that proclaimed the Catalan Republic under French protection on a day like today in 1641.

The Junta de Braços or Braços Generals (States-General) was, during the early modern age, an institution of the Principality of Catalonia, convened by the Generalitat of Catalonia in cases of emergency or urgency. It was composed by the representatives of the Catalan Courts who at that time were in Barcelona.

The decision to convene the Junta de Braços was to be taken by the three deputies and the three oïdors that formed the Generalitat. It was constituted following the same system of the Catalan Courts, that is, by bringing together the members of the three estates of the realm: the ecclesiastic formed by the clergy, the military formed by the nobility, and the popular formed by royal towns and cities of the country.

Only those who lived in Barcelona (or who were at that time) were summoned, due to the urgent nature of the issues that had to be raised and the precarious communications of the time made it impossible for a general call for all of Catalonia. This favoured the presence of a majority of Barcelona residents, and of a greater number of nobles who lived in the city; and the presence of the ciutadans honrats (honorable citizens) of Barcelona was accepted, even though on an individual basis.

The Principality of Catalonia (in Catalan Principat de Catalunya; in Occitan Principat de Catalonha; in Latin Principatus Cathaloniæ) was a medieval and early modern state in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula.

During most of its history it was in dynastic union with the Kingdom of Aragon, constituting together the Crown of Aragon. Between the 13th and the 18th centuries, it was bordered by the Kingdom of Aragon to the west, the Kingdom of Valencia to the south, the Kingdom of France and the feudal lordship of Andorra to the north and by the Mediterranean Sea to the east.

The term Principality of Catalonia was official until the 1830s, when the Spanish government implemented the centralized provincial division, but remained in popular and informal contexts.

Today, the term Principat (Principality) is used primarily to refer to Catalonia, as distinct from the other Catalan Countries, and usually including the historical region of Roussillon in Southern France.

The first reference to Catalonia and the Catalans appears in the Liber maiolichinus de gestis Pisanorum illustribus, a Pisan chronicle (written between 1117 and 1125) of the conquest of Majorca by a joint force of Northern Italians, Catalans, and Occitans. At the time, Catalonia did not yet exist as a political entity, though the use of this term seems to acknowledge Catalonia as a cultural or geographical entity.

The counties that eventually made up the Principality of Catalonia were gradually unified under the rule of the count of Barcelona.

In 1137, the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon were unified under a single dynasty, creating what modern historians call the Crown of Aragon; however, Aragon and Catalonia retained their own political structure and legal traditions, developing separate political communities along the next centuries. 

Under Alfons I the Troubador (reigned 1164-1196), Catalonia was regarded as a legal entity for the first time. Still, the term Principality of Catalonia was not used legally until the 14th century, when it was applied to the territories ruled by the Courts of Catalonia.

Its institutional system evolved over the centuries, establishing political bodies analogous to the ones of the other kingdoms of the Crown (such as the Courts, the Generalitat or the Consell de Cent) and legislation (constitutions, derived from the Usages of Barcelona) which largely limited the royal power and secured the political model of pactism. Catalonia contributed to further develop the Crown trade and military, most significantly their navy.

The Catalan language flourished and expanded as more territories were added to the Crown, including Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Sicily, Naples and Athens, constituting a thalassocracy across the Mediterranean. The crisis of the 14th century, the end of the rule of House of Barcelona (1410) and a civil war (1462-1472) weakened the role of the Principality in Crown and international affairs.

The marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469 laid the foundations of the monarchy of Spain. In 1492 the Spanish colonization of the Americas began, and political power began to shift away towards Castile.

Tensions between Catalan institutions and the monarchy, alongside the peasants' revolts, provoked the Reapers' War (1640-1659). By the Treaty of the Pyrenees the Roussillon was ceded to France.

During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), the Crown of Aragon supported the Archduke Charles of Habsburg. After the surrender of Barcelona in 1714, King Philip V of Bourbon, inspired by the French model, imposed absolutism and a unifying administration across Spain, and enacted the Nueva Planta decrees for every realm of the Crown of Aragon, which suppressed the main Catalan, Aragonese, Valencian and Majorcan political institutions and rights and merged them into the Crown of Castile as provinces, ending their status as separate political entities. 

However, the territories, including the Principality of Catalonia, remained as administrative units until the establishment of the Spanish provincial division of 1833, which divided Catalonia into four provinces.

More information: Renaissance Kingdoms

True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people.
There are natural and imprescriptible rights
which an entire nation has no right to violate.

Marquis de Lafayette

DECREES OF NEW PLANT, ENDING CATALAN SOVEREIGNTY

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Nueva Planta decrees promulgated, on a day like today in 1716, by King Philip V of Spain over the Principality of Catalonia, abolishing the Catalan institutions and most of its legislation, being replaced by those of the Castile, thus putting an end to Catalonia as a separate political entity and becoming a province of the new French-style Kingdom of Spain.

The Nueva Planta decrees, in Spanish Decretos de Nueva Planta, were a number of decrees signed between 1707 and 1716 by Philip V, the first Bourbon King of Spain, during and shortly after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession by the Treaty of Utrecht.

The Decrees put an end to the existence of the realms of the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia and Majorca) and the Crown of Castile. The laws of the Crown of Castile were applied in all Spain, essentially establishing the Kingdom of Spain as a French-style absolute monarchy.

Angered by what he saw as sedition by the realms of the Crown of Aragon, who had supported the claim of Charles of Austria to the Spanish thrones during the war and taking his native France as a model of a centralised state, Philip V suppressed the institutions, privileges, and the ancient charters (in Catalan furs) of almost all the areas that were formerly part of the Crown of Aragon (Kingdom of Aragon, Principality of Catalonia, Kingdom of Valencia, and the Kingdom of Majorca).

The decrees ruled that all the territories in the Crown of Aragon except the Aran Valley were to be ruled by the laws of Castile (the most praiseworthy in all the Universe according to the 1707 decree), embedding those regions into a new and nearly uniformly administered, centralised Spain.

The other historic territories (Navarre and the other Basque territories) supported Philip V initially, whom they saw as belonging to the lineage of Henry III of Navarre, but after Philip V's military campaign to crush the Basque uprising, he backed down on his intent to suppress home rule.

The acts abolishing the charters were promulgated in 1707 in Valencia and Aragon, in 1715 in Majorca and the other Balearic Islands, with the exception of Menorca, then a possession of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and on and off during the 18th century till it was returned to Spain in 1802, and in 1716 in Catalonia.

More information: GenCat

There is no greater tyranny than that
which is perpetrated under the shield of the law
and in the name of justice.

Montesquieu

ELIZABETH SHORT, THE MURDER OF THE BLACK DAHLIA

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, whose body was found in Los Angeles on a day like today in 1947.

Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924-c.January 14–15, 1947), known posthumously as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947.

Her case became highly publicized owing to the gruesome nature of the crime, which included the mutilation of her corpse, which was bisected at the waist.

A native of Boston, Short spent her early life in New England and Florida before relocating to California, where her father lived. It is commonly held that she was an aspiring actress, though she had no known acting credits or jobs during her time in Los Angeles. She would acquire the nickname of the Black Dahlia posthumously, as newspapers of the period often nicknamed particularly lurid crimes; the term may have originated from a film noir murder mystery, The Blue Dahlia (1946). After the discovery of her body, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) began an extensive investigation that produced over 150 suspects but yielded no arrests.

Short's unsolved murder and the details surrounding it have had a lasting cultural intrigue, generating various theories and public speculation. Her life and death have been the basis of numerous books and films, and her murder is frequently cited as one of the most famous unsolved murders in U.S. history, as well as one of the oldest unsolved cases in Los Angeles County. It has likewise been credited by historians as one of the first major crimes in postwar America to capture national attention.

More information: FBI

Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924, in the Hyde Park section of Boston, Massachusetts.

In December, at age 18, Short relocated to Vallejo, California, to live with her father, whom she had not seen since age 6. At the time he was working at the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard on San Francisco Bay. Arguments between Short and her father led to her moving out in January 1943.

On January 9, 1947, Short returned to her home in Los Angeles after a brief trip to San Diego with Robert "Red" Manley, a 25-year-old married salesman she had been dating. Manley stated that he dropped Short off at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and that Short was to meet her sister, who was visiting from Boston, that afternoon. By some accounts, staff of the Biltmore recalled having seen Short using the lobby telephone. Shortly after, she was allegedly seen by patrons of the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge at 754 South Olive Street, approximately 3⁄8 mile (600 m) away from the Biltmore.

On the morning of January 15, 1947, Short's naked body, severed into two pieces, was found in a vacant lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue, midway between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street (at 34.0164°N 118.333°W) in the neighbourhood of Leimert Park. At the time, Leimert Park was largely undeveloped.

Short's severely mutilated body was completely severed at the waist and drained of blood, leaving her skin a pallid white. Medical examiners determined that she had been dead for around ten hours prior to the discovery, leaving her time of death either sometime during the evening of January 14 or the early morning hours of January 15.

The body had apparently been washed by the killer. Short's face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating an effect known as the Glasgow smile. She had several cuts on her thigh and breasts, where entire portions of flesh had been sliced away. The lower half of her body was positioned a foot away from the upper, and her intestines had been tucked neatly beneath her buttocks. The corpse had been posed, with her hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, and her legs spread apart.

Los Angeles Herald-Express reporter Aggie Underwood was among the first to arrive, and took several photos of the corpse and crime scene. Near the body, detectives located a heel print on the ground amid the tire tracks, and a cement sack containing watery blood was also found nearby.

On January 21, 1947, a person claiming to be Short's killer placed a phone call to the office of James Richardson, the editor of the Examiner, congratulating Richardson on the newspaper's coverage of the case and stating he planned on eventually turning himself in, but not before allowing police to pursue him further. Additionally, the caller told Richardson to expect some souvenirs of Beth Short in the mail.

On January 24, a suspicious manila envelope was discovered, addressed to The Los Angeles Examiner and other Los Angeles papers, with individual words that had been cut-and-pasted from newspaper clippings; additionally, a large message on the face of the envelope read: Here is Dahlia's belongings [,] letter to follow. The envelope contained Short's birth certificate, business cards, photographs, names written on pieces of paper, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen embossed on the cover.

On March 14, an apparent suicide note scrawled in pencil on a bit of paper was found tucked in a shoe in a pile of men's clothing by the ocean's edge at the foot of Breeze Avenue in Venice. The note read: To whom it may concern: I have waited for the police to capture me for the Black Dahlia killing, but have not. I am too much of a coward to turn myself in, so this is the best way out for me. I couldn't help myself for that, or this. Sorry, Mary. The pile of clothing was first seen by a beach caretaker, who reported the discovery to lifeguard captain John Dillon. Dillon immediately notified Captain L. E. Christensen of West Los Angeles police station. The clothes included a coat and trousers of blue herringbone tweed, a brown and white T-shirt, white jockey shorts, tan socks and tan moccasin leisure shoes, size about eight. The clothes gave no clue about the identity of their owner.

By the spring of 1947, Short's murder had become a cold case with few new leads. Sergeant Finis Brown, one of the lead detectives on the case, blamed the press for compromising the investigation through journalists' probing of details and unverified reporting.

In September 1949, a grand jury convened to discuss inadequacies in the LAPD's homicide unit based on their failure to solve numerous murders -especially those of women and children- in the previous several years, Short's being one of them.

In the aftermath of the grand jury, further investigation was done on Short's past, with detectives tracing her movements between Massachusetts, California and Florida, and also interviewed people who knew her in Texas and New Orleans. However, the interviews yielded no useful information in the murder.

More information: Novel Suspects

Serial killers kill for the power and control
they experience during the murders
and for the added ego boost
they get in the aftermath from community fears,
media coverage, and the police investigations.

Pat Brown