Here's your animated history lesson of the day: the Norman Conquest of Britain by William the Conqueror, who defeated the Saxon King Harold in the Battle of Hastings, in October 1066, as narrated by the over 70-meter long Bayeux Tapestry.
The Tapestry, which is really an embroidery, was commissioned shortly after the conquest, around 1070, probably by William the Conqueror's half-brother Bishop Odo of Bayeux, where it is still on display. Vividly illustrated, the Tapestry begged to be animated. In fact, you can think of it as a proto-comic that uses images to narrate a sequence of events woven into a proper plot, with a beginning, middle, and end (spotted on Titam.)
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
OK Corral court records discovered
The notorious 30-second OK Corral shootout in aptly named Tombstone, Arizona, which left the McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton - all 'Cowboys' - dead on 26 October 1881 caused quite a sensation in the press at the time. Court staff have now discovered records of the inquest following the gunfight while clearing out a storeroom (BBC).
The Cowboys' killers - Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday - were exonerated, but Virgil Earp, the town marshall, was discharged: the locals suspected that what was presented as crime fighting was, in fact, common murder, the bloody result of a feud between the Earps and the Clantons.
In the equally famous 1957 film version of OK Corral (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral), Wyatt Earp, who is described as a 'legendary frontiersman of the American West, [...] an itinerant saloonkeeper, gambler, lawman, gunslinger, and confidence man', is played by Burt Lancaster, while Kirk Douglas plays Earp's buddy, the consumptive drifter Doc Holliday, described as a 'gambler, gunman, and sometime dentist' (Britannica).
While, almost inevitably, the otherwise unremarkable town of Tombstone does its best to cash in on its now glorified Wild West notoriety by attracting tourists with tacky re-enactments of the gun battle (to which children are taken, if you listen carefully while watching the video below), the local governor's business sense is, to say the least, mercenary: as the BBC reports, 'Earlier this month Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed into law a measure allowing Arizonans to carry concealed firearms without a permit.'
Newspaper cutting about the gunfight. Image source
The Cowboys' killers - Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday - were exonerated, but Virgil Earp, the town marshall, was discharged: the locals suspected that what was presented as crime fighting was, in fact, common murder, the bloody result of a feud between the Earps and the Clantons.
In the equally famous 1957 film version of OK Corral (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral), Wyatt Earp, who is described as a 'legendary frontiersman of the American West, [...] an itinerant saloonkeeper, gambler, lawman, gunslinger, and confidence man', is played by Burt Lancaster, while Kirk Douglas plays Earp's buddy, the consumptive drifter Doc Holliday, described as a 'gambler, gunman, and sometime dentist' (Britannica).
Image source
While, almost inevitably, the otherwise unremarkable town of Tombstone does its best to cash in on its now glorified Wild West notoriety by attracting tourists with tacky re-enactments of the gun battle (to which children are taken, if you listen carefully while watching the video below), the local governor's business sense is, to say the least, mercenary: as the BBC reports, 'Earlier this month Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed into law a measure allowing Arizonans to carry concealed firearms without a permit.'
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