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Alfred Pleasonton (July 7, 1824-January 17, 1897) was an officer in the Mexican American War and the general of volunteers in the Union cavalry during the Civil War. Later, General Pleasonton commanded the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac during the Gettysburg Campaign, including the largest cavalry battle of the war at Brandy Station. The General also rode one of the most famous mounts of the war named Slicky.

In August 1880, General Pleasonton visited The New York Times. During his visit, he and an editor had a wide ranging discussion. The focus of the talk was printed by the newspaper. It gave the readers of the Times a fascinating insight on horses, famous cavalry officers, and the mounts they rode during the Civil War.

On May 7th, horseracing fans will watch the 2016 running of the Kentucky Derby. With "The Run for the Roses" soon approaching, fans and sportswriters are discussing who the Kentucky Derby favorite will be? Presently, there is much talk about the undefeated 2-year-old champion Nyquist, who won the Breeder's Cup Juvenile last year, and began the 2016 campaign with victories in the San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita Park, and the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park.

Over the years, this column has enjoyed introducing the readers to the Kentucky Derby winner 100 years earlier than the scheduled present day race. Accordingly, the column is pleased to spotlight the champion of the 1916 Kentucky Derby, a black colt named George Smith.

Prior to relocating to New York, I lived in Maryland. There, I had the pleasure of volunteering at the Days End Farm Horse Rescue (DEFHR) in Lisbon, MD., a nonprofit, volunteer-based animal organization founded in 1989. DEFHR's mission focuses on rescuing and rehabilitating critically ill and injured horses. After rehabilitation, the horses are evaluated and provided training needed to best prepare them for adoption. DEFHR also offers a wide variety of educational programs and internships.

Recently, I learned that DEFHR welcomed a new Equine Ambassador, whose role is to help educate the public about equine safety and raise awareness of equine abuse and neglect. The horse is an 18-year-old Belgian Draft named Officer Barney, who was recently retired from the Baltimore Police Department's Mounted Police Unit, which according to The Baltimore Sun was started in 1888.

'Uncle' John Harper, of Nantura Stock Farm in Midway, Kentucky, owned, bred, and trained one of the most famous racehorses in the decade following the Civil War. Named Longfellow, the colt was rich brown in color with a white stripe, a white near hind sock, and white on his off hind coronet. When Harper, born in 1800, was asked if he had named his colt for the well-known poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harper replied, "Never heard much of that feller but the colt of mine's got the longest legs of any feller I have ever seen."

On April 25, 1921, horseracing fans in America read an intriguing newspaper article. It read: "A speed marvel of the turf which is being marveled as a rival for Man o' War has been discovered in Australia, according to news that has just reached this country. It is being claimed for this horse, at least, that he has equaled the half-mile record made by Man o' War at Aqueduct when he stepped the distance in 45 seconds," reported The New York Times. "The Australian horse is the middle distance champion, Gloaming, and he is credited with having run half mile in 45 seconds in New Zealand".

For any race horse to be compared to Man o' War (1917-1947), who is considered one of the greatest Thoroughbreds of all time, is a remarkable comparison.

Near the U.S. Department of Interior and the Pan American Union building located at Virginia Avenue NW, 18th Street NW and C Street NW in Washington D.C. is the equestrian bronze statue of the Venezuelan military and political leader Simon Bolivar (July 24, 1783 - December 17, 1830). Bolivar played an instrumental role in the establishment of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia as sovereign states, independent of Spanish rule.

The equestrian statue portrays Bolivar riding his horse with his right arm raised over his head, and he is wielding his sword. He is riding a horse named Palomo, who is remembered as the mount that accompanied Bolivar on most of his campaigns of national liberation.

In 1887, Lord Randolph, the father of Winston Churchill, purchased a yearling from breeder James Snarry for £300 at the Doncaster sale. Foaled in 1886, the horse was a black filly by Trappist out of Festibe. Lord Randolph named the filly L'Abbesse de Jourarre. The name was the choice of Lady Randolph Churchill, who had been reading the new French Novel of that title by Ernest Renan. Lady Churchill described the filly as "a gallant little thing with a heart bigger than her body." As a racehorse, L'Abbesse de Jourarre competed on the Turf for three years and captured the attention of the racing public.

The Duke of Cumberland's horse was foaled during the solar eclipse of April 1, 1764, so the Duke appropriately named the foal Eclipse. Unbeknown at the time, the chestnut colored horse with a white stocking would become a national celebrity as he became the undefeated British Thoroughbred racehorse of the 18th century.

Foaled at the Cranbourne Lodge Stud, Eclipse's sire was the Jockey Club Plate winner Marske by Squirt from The Ruby Mare. Eclipse's dam Spiletta was by Regulus from the Godolphin Arabian. After the death of the Duke of Cumberland in 1765, Eclipse was sold for 75 guineas to a sheep dealer from Smithfield named William Wildman.

In the annals of great Thoroughbreds of Kentucky, Grey Eagle is remembered as a beautiful and exceptionally fast racehorse. He is also admired as a racehorse that ran in an era where racecourses were three to five miles long, there was no starting gate, and horses often ran two to three races a day. In addition, Grey Eagle is credited with helping to establish Kentucky's reputation as the foremost source of high-quality horses in the United States.

Over the years, this column has had the pleasure of presenting stories on artists that are renowned for painting horses. These great painters included George Stubbs, Sir Alfred Munnings, Rosa Bonheur, Theodore Gericault, and Richard Stone Reeves. While these artists symbolize magnificent equestrian art over the centuries, it is always a pleasure to highlight a new modern day artist, who may one day reach the same pinnacle of accomplishment. That equestrian artist is from England, and her name is Susan Crawford.

Born in Scotland in 1941, Crawford was raised on a farm in East Lothian, where her parents raised racehorses. She spent her young life around horses, including riding them.
Years ago, newspapers in the United States often reported stories of celebrated cavalry officers and their mounts. As a result, certain horses became as well known as their riders. One such horse was Kidron, the charger of General "Black Jack" Pershing.

John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing (September 13, 1860-July 15, 1948), one of the most celebrated generals in the history of the United States Army, led the American Expeditionary Forces to victory over Germany in World War I. Gen. Pershing's war horse named Kidron was a striking dark bay thoroughbred with a white-blazed face and two white hind socks.
Buckpasser was a Thoroughbred bay colt bred and owned by Ogden Phipps, an American stockbroker, tennis champion and Hall of Fame member, and a thoroughbred horse racing executive. Phipps was also a horse owner and breeder. His horse Buckpasser was foaled in 1963 at Claiborne Farm in Paris Kentucky. The horse's sire was Tom Fool, a winner of the 1953 American Horse of the Year award and a Hall of Fame inductee. His dam was Busanda, whose sire was the 1937 U.S. Triple Crown champion War Admiral, a son of Man o' War.
The bay colt was bred and owned by the United Kingdom's Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. Foaled in 1893 by St. Simon out of Perdita II, the horse was named Persimmon. The British Thoroughbred's racing career lasted from June 1895 to July 1897. During that period, Persimmon ran nine times and had seven major wins; Persimmon's only two losses were to another outstanding colt named St. Frusquin.
On June 2, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower was at his farm in Gettysburg. On that day, Lester Goodson, president of the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) who had driven from his J-3 ranch in Magnolia Texas, presented the President with two quarter horses. "President Eisenhower looked as happy as a small boy at Christmas today," wrote Philip Warden in the Chicago Daily Tribune, "as he accepted two new horses for himself and his grandson, David."
The BBC News UK reported on September 2, 2014 that a World War One warhorse had been awarded an "animal Victoria Cross" to mark the role of all animals that served with British forces in World War One. The honorary PDSA [The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals] Dickin Medal was posthumously conferred to Warrior at a ceremony at the Imperial War Museum in London. Brough Scott, the grandson of Warrior's rider Gen. Jack Seely, accepted the large, bronze medallion that bore the words "For Gallantry" and "We Also Serve" within a laurel wreath.
There is a bronze plaque in Tecumseh, Michigan that celebrates the esteemed horse of one of America's famous Army officers and Civil War Commanders, General George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876). The plaque reads:

DON JUAN
THOROUGHBRED
1853-1888
DON JUAN WAS THE
MOUNT OF OWNER
GEN. GEO. A. CUSTER
IN THE MAY 1865
WASHINGTON
GRAND REVIEW

The story of Don Juan has added to the memorable exploits of General Custer, whose prominence is forever remembered in his death at the Little Big Horn. However, the horse's role in the Washington Grand Review of 1865, mentioned in the plaque, was remembered as a somewhat controversial event in Custer's life. Described as a 'magnificent seal brown thoroughbred stallion', the horse's story began just before Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

While visiting a New York Swarovski, the famous Austrian producer of luxury crystal, I was struck by the beauty of two crystal figurines of a horse and foal in the store. They were created by an Austrian Crystal Sculptor named Anton Hirzinger, who clearly has a remarkable talent to design crystal horses.As a small boy living in Austria, Anton dreamed of becoming a sculptor. Although an unusual aspiration for a small child, it has been said that it already hinted at the creative leaning and talent that was to surface. As a teenager, he discovered crystal design, and the boy from Innsbruck later enrolled at the Technical College for Glassmaking in Kramsach.
On a beautiful summer's day on Saturday, August 21, 1993, a memorial cairn for William Henry Ogilvie, a Scottish narrative poet, journalist, and horseman, was unveiled in front of a substantial crowd of people between the villages of Ashkirk and Roberston in Scotland. The cairn was funded by money raised by a memorial committee to promote the name of Ogilvie and his works thirty years after his death.
Enid Bagnold (1889-1981), the British author and playwright, wrote six novels and ten plays, including the London and Broadway hits "The Chalk Garden" and "A Matter of Gravity," in a literary career that spanned sixty years. Today, she is best known for her 1935 novel, National Velvet which was made into a film in 1944 with Hollywood's newest child star, a beautiful 12-year old named Elizabeth Taylor. Bagnold's classic children's book was based on her childhood love of horses and a desire to have her children know that a child's dream can come true.
In 1794, the painter Gilbert Stuart, with a letter of introduction from John Jay, went to Philadelphia to request sittings with George Washington. As depictions of Washington were in demand on both sides of the Atlantic, Stuart was anxious to paint Washington’s portrait. Stuart’s established technique for finding appropriate expressions and poses for his sitters was to engage them with lively chitchat. However, Stuart found the President a difficult poser as the painter’s usual charm and banter failed to enliven the reserved man. According to Washington’s grandson, George Washington Parke Curtis, Stuart finally engaged him by discussing horses, a favorite topic of the President, who was an accomplished equestrian.
The dark bay/brown mare with the white blaze and stockings was foaled on April 1, 2004 in Kentucky. Her Sire was Street Cry and Dam, Vertigineux. Its owners named the foal Zenyatta after the album Zenyatta Mondatta by The Police, who were signed to A&M records by Jerry Moss, the foal’s owner. Unbeknownst at the time, Zenyatta would captivate the racing world becoming a legendary American champion Thoroughbred that has enthralled all who have seen her race.
In April 1954, in an article appearing in the Saturday Evening Post by Marine Lt. Col. Andrew C. Geer, America first learned about a mare named Reckless; a beautiful chestnut colored horse with a white blaze on her face, serving with the Fifth Marine Regiment in Korea. Upon the horse’s return to the United States seven months later, the public further learned that Reckless’ heroic and courageous actions on the battlefield led the Marines to bestow her with many military Decorations.
Titian’s portrait of Charles V at Muhlberg was painted with oil on canvas in 1548 to commemorate the victory of Emperor Charles’s troops at Muhlberg on 24 April 1547. In the painting, Charles wears brilliantly shining armor and is carrying a lance on a beautiful black horse. The armor and red sash seen on Charles and his horse were worn in actual battle. The portrait was commissioned by Charles’s sister, Mary of Austria, Queen of Hungary entered the Prado's collection in 1827.
On Sunday, July 20, 1997, the sky was clear blue over the parade ground at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia. On that warm summer day, Little Sorrel, the war horse of General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson of the Confederate Army, was disinterred from the family plot and laid to rest in front of his master's statue 111 years after the horse's death. Escorting the 18-inch-tall walnut casket bearing the remains of Little Sorrel were cadets from VMI. Participating in the ceremony were mounted cavalry and infantry, a fife and drum corps, a bagpiper, members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy dressed in the fashion of the period, the Pastor of the Lexington Presbyterian Church, where General Jackson and his wife worshipped during their years in Lexington, and featured speakers.
George Stubbs was known in 18th century England as 'Mr. Stubbs the Horse Painter,' a title that was not a term of respect as the painting of animals was considered less important than the artistic work of historical subjects, portraits, genre scenes, and landscapes. Over the last fifty years, however, the art world has recognized he was more than 'Mr. Stubbs the Horse Painter,' but a superb 'painter who painted horses.' Today, George Stubbs is recognized as an artist of immense talent and genius, and his work is greatly esteemed. Presently, the record price for a Stubbs painting was set by the sale at auction of Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, with a Trainer, a Stable-Lad, and a Jockey (1765) at Christie's International in London on July 5, 2011 for $36 million (22.4 million pounds).
European artists in history recognized for their brilliant knowledge and skill in painting horses include the British artists John Wooton, George Stubbs, Sir Alfred Munnings; Theodore Gericault and Rosa Bonheur of France; the Danish painter Paulus Potter, and Flemish artist Johann Georg von Hamilton. The famous artists Eugene Delacroix and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec also painted horses during their notable careers. Another painter that must be included in the history of horse painting is Rudolf Koller, who is regarded as one of the most important nineteenth century artists of Switzerland.
On Saturday, October 20, 1962, the evening session of The National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden in New York, which began that afternoon, took place with the color and pageantry for which the show is renowned.With 7,000 people in attendance, America's most brilliant horse show opened with the customary parade of the international teams. The teams' equestrians and their mounts, including the United States Equestrian Team (USET), marched to the applause of the spectators as the band played the national anthem of each country. Lt. General Garrison Davidson, the commanding general of the First Army, received the team salutes.
Winston Churchill took a respite from politics on Saturday, 14 May 1951. On that day, Princess Elizabeth invited the eminent statesman to a luncheon at Hurst Park before the running of the Winston Churchill Stakes, a race run at a of just over one mile. Churchill's thoroughbred, a five-year old grey named Colonist II, was among the runners. Also running was King George VI's black filly, Above Board, and five other challengers: Cantarello II, Fast Fox, Selskar Abbot, Star Spangled Banner, and Tourette. Despite a cold and dreary afternoon, there was a large crowd at Hurst Park. The field was in the starter's gate at 3:45 p.m. One minute later, the thoroughbreds bolted from the gate and thundered down the turf. Wearing Churchill's racing colors of pink with chocolate sleeves and cap, jockey Tommy Gosling and Colonist II took the lead and were in front halfway up the straight.
Equestrians enjoy books by authors who have written about horses or reading about famous people with a love of horses, some of whom have been the focus of my column. They included Anna Sewell, Dick Francis, Marguerite Henry, Beryl Markham, Jackie Kennedy, and Winston Churchill. In keeping with my pleasure in sharing stories that include horses, I am pleased to introduce readers to a book by the first American novelist, James Fenimore Cooper.Many are familiar with Cooper's most well-known and famous books: The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841). For the first time, I recently read Cooper's second novel, The Spy (1821), which was his first book set in America and dealing with an American theme, patriotism. The Spy was an immediate success and made Cooper the first American novelist to gain popularity and to convince the world that Native American fiction could equal that of England.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ( 22 May 1859 - 7 July 1930 ), was a Scottish physician, a sportsman, a crusader for criminal and social justice, a volunteer doctor in the Boer War, military historian, and writer of the world famous stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which is considered a landmark in the field of crime fiction. As he developed his career as an author, Conan Doyle was also a horse owner, rider, and prolific letter writer. In July 1896, he and his family settled into a house in Surrey, which he named Undershaw. He called his home and property 'quite a children's paradise that included a horse, pigs, fowls, dogs and cats.' It also gave him a haven to write. Twelve years later, Conan Doyle bought his neighbor's land, which gave him room for stables on his own property.
In late September 2011, the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY announced that it would welcome four rare Marwari horses, three mares and a yearling, on permanent loan from Francesca Kelly, a writer, who is dedicated to preserving the breed from their native India. Three of the horses arrived Tuesday, September 27 from Ms. Kelly's farm on Chappaquiddick Island off the coast of Massachusetts. The fourth, a yearling colt, will arrive later this fall. Ms Kelly, who is moving her herd to England, gives the Kentucky Horse Park the distinction of the only known location in North America where Marwari can be seen by the public.The Marwari is noted for their extremely distinct ears, which curve inward and sometimes touch, or overlap, when in front position. The registry considers the ears as the main characteristic to judge the breed. The horse is truly beautiful looking, and it's most prevalent body colors are dark brown, bay, chestnut, dun, gray, lead bitten gray, skewbald, and pie bald. The albino is held in highest regard in India as it is often used for religious purposes and ceremonies.
Theodore Gericault was an influential 19th Century French artist, painter, and lithographer, who became one of the pioneers of the Romantic Movement. He influenced many of his contemporaries especially the younger Eugene Delacroix, the most celebrated Romantic painter of the era. Although Gericault painted different subjects, his talent in painting horses was a theme that recurred throughout his career.
Acclaimed writer Michael Morpurgo, former Children's Laureate of Britain, wrote his 1982 children's fiction novel, War Horse, after meeting World War I veterans where he lived in the village of Iddesleigh in Devon, England. Morpurgo spoke with a veteran of the Devon Yeomanry who was involved with horses, and an officer with the cavalry who told him he had confided all his hopes and fears to his horse. Another veteran told him how the army came to the village to buy horses for the cavalry and as draught animals to pull guns, ambulances, and other vehicles. These veterans told Morpurgo of the horrifying conditions of the war and loss of both human and animal life.
Central Park, in the center of Manhattan in New York City, opened in 1857. Landscape designer Frederick Law Olmstead and English architect Calvert Vaux improved and expanded the 843 acre park, which was completed in 1873. The beautiful public park contains several natural looking lakes and ponds, walking tracks, two ice skating rinks, natural woods, grassy areas, a zoo, and a reservoir. In addition, there are six miles of bridle paths. Although carriage horses trot through the park and police horses sometimes patrol, horses have not been housed in the park for more than 100 years. But that is about to change.
On Sunday, 18 June 1815, the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, led British troops and Prussian forces against an Imperial French army under Emperor Napoleon, at the Battle of Waterloo in present-day Belgium. During the decisive battle, Wellington was in the saddle from four in the morning to midnight. His mount was a chestnut named Copenhagen, whose stamina and personality resulted in the horse receiving the admiration of Wellington's troops and the English public.
Just off the second floor entrance to the Museum of Metropolitan Art's magnificent collection of "Nineteenth Century European Painting and Sculpture" in New York is a corridor that leads to the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Gallery. Hanging on the wall on the left hand side of the well-lit corridor, adjacent to Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier's painting Friedland, 1807, is a mammoth oil canvas - approximately 8 x 16.5 ft. (244.5 x 506.7 cm) - titled The Horse Fair. The painting is dated 1853-55 and signed by the French animal painter Rosa Bonheur, a remarkable woman and the most famous female artist of the nineteenth century.
In recent years, numerous questions have been raised from horse welfare organizations about the welfare of horses in the U.S. as a result of the present economic recession and the cessation of slaughter within the country's borders. Additional questions were asked about the number of horses being exported outside the country and their welfare, particularly when transported over long distances to foreign slaughterhouses.
Under a gray sky and the threat of rain, the pageantry of the opening ceremonies of the XI Olympic Games took place on August 1, 1936 in the Olympiastadion in Berlin. With a crowd of 100,000 hailing Adolph Hitler and the 5,000 athletes from forty-nine nations, the most political sporting event of the twentieth century began. Over the next two weeks, the Summer Games transcended the spirit of Olympic competition between amateur athletes and nations. The Games pitted the dark forces of Nazism and their fervent nationalism and ideology of racial superiority against the democracies of modern western civilization.
During the First World War, Australia sent thousands of horses known as Walers overseas. Originally bred in New South Wales, the Walers were used by the Australian Imperial Force and mounted units of the British and Indian armies. Walers saw service in Europe, India, and the Middle East. Of 136,000 Walers sent abroad by Australia, only one, a horse named Sandy, returned home.
Saddlers’ Hall is the home of the Worshipful Company of Saddlers, a trade and professional association based in the City of London, whose antecedents are thought to have first existed in the eleventh century. In the summer of 1892, the Hall, which for centuries existed on the same site in Cheapside a few yards from St. Paul’s Cathedral, was the venue for a remarkable exhibition on the history of saddlery.
On a hot and humid early evening at Belmont Park, Big Brown's bid for horse racing immortality ended. In a stunning turn of events, jockey Kent Desormeaux pulled up Big Brown when he saw that his horse could not catch Da' Tara, who went on to win by 5 1/4 lengths over Denis of Cork. Big Brown finished last, ending his quest to become the twelfth horse in history to win the Triple Crown.
Jerome Park, the premier thoroughbred race course in New York City after the Civil War, and the American Jockey Club held the first day of its summer meeting on Wednesday, June 19, 1867. The correspondent for the New York Times described the day as “gloriously beautiful, the attendance numerous and select, the fields of horses large and of the highest class, and the racing close and exciting.” Of interest on that splendid afternoon in the Bronx was the second race, “The Belmont Stakes” - named after the prominent New York banker financier August Belmont - that was held for the first time.
Big Brown delivered again. The big bay thoroughbred won the 133rd Preakness Stakes, the second jewel of Triple Crown, at Pimlico Race Course by 5 1/4 lengths and continued his domination over all challengers. Big Brown's triumph extended his unbeaten streak to five straight.
Building E of the Stakes Barn at Pimlico Race Course is a dark green building with a white tin roof. On a rainy and dreary afternoon, one day before the Preakness Stakes, known as the second jewel of the Triple Crown, Big Brown munches on a bale of hay in stall 34. A groom arrives and gently brushes the horse's dark mane, as the NBC Sports television camera people ask the assistant trainer for permission to film the bay colt. Shortly, thereafter, a walker takes Big Brown out of the stall for his twice daily exercise around the interior of the stall area. Two other horses join the exercise parade. The television crew films Big Brown when he has made a complete circumference of the walk area.
As the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs approached on May 3, questions had lingered for weeks about Big Brown. Was it possible for the undefeated bay Thoroughbred to become the first horse since Regret in 1915 to win the Derby in only his fourth start? Could he win from post position no. 20, a feat that was only done once before in 1929? How would he fare in a large and crowded field against tough competition the likes of Colonel John and Pyro? Would his bad feet hold up?
The American author, humorist, and columnist Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (1876–1944) was once asked to describe the Kentucky Derby. Cobb described the “emerald velvet” track at Churchill Downs, how pretty girls turned “the grandstand into a brocaded terrace of beauty and color such as the hanging gardens of Babylon never equaled,” and how the horses were “each a vision of courage and heart and speed.” Cobb went on and on. He finally ended by writing, “ . . . but what’s the use. Until you go to Kentucky and with your own eyes behold the Derby, you ain’t never been nowhere and you ain’t never seen nothin’.”
Seventy years ago, one of the greatest triumphs by an American horse in the twentieth century took place on foreign soil. The date was March 25, 1938. The place was Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. The horse was a small-sized chestnut stallion named Battleship, the son of the legendary racehorse Man o' War. The event was the 100th Grand National, the toughest steeplechase in the world for horse and rider.
Two Parts
At 9:30 a.m. on Friday, June 5, 1896, the Special from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania bearing Governor Daniel H. Hastings and his party arrived at Gettysburg. As the train steamed into town, a governor's salute was fired west of the city by Light Battery C, Third United States Artillery. After disembarking at the railroad station, the entourage was driven by horse carriage to the Gettysburg battlefield. After arriving at the historic site, Governor Hastings joined other dignitaries in preparation of the unveiling and dedication of a monument to Major-General George Gordon Meade, the Commander of the Army of the Potomac, who had died more than twenty years earlier.
As Duke Ellington, the brilliant jazz composer and band leader, wandered through the Wildenstein Gallery on East 64th Street in New York City in March 1968, he marveled at the superb French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art exhibition titled "Degas's Racing World." On display were one hundred and thirty paintings, drawings, and bronzes of horses, jockeys, and people at the race track.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II rode sidesaddle down the Mall from Buckingham Palace to the Horse Guards Parade, where a ceremony known as the Trooping of the Colour took place on June 5, 1952. Marked by military color and pageantry, the three-hundred-year-old tradition was held each year by British and Commonwealth infantry regiments to honor the birthday of the reigning King or Queen. As the Colonel in Chief of the Scots Guards, the twenty-six year-old Queen wore the blue ribbon of the Garter over her scarlet tunic, dark blue skirt , and a black tricorne hat with a tall white plume affixed to the left side. She sat atop a gleaming chestnut gelding named Winston.
The legend of Marengo, a light-colored Arab stallion, began after the Battle of Aboukir in Egypt in 1799. Thought to be descended from the well-known El Naseri stud, the stallion was shipped to France to be trained as a charger, a cavalry horse trained for battle, for Napoleon Bonaparte. The horse from Egypt met Napoleon's personal preferences. French historian Agathon Jean Franчois Fain (1778 - 1837) wrote: "The horses which the Emperor [Napoleon] usually rode were Arabians; of small size, greyish-white, good tempered, gentle gallopers, and easy amblers."
Two Parts
Seventeen-year-old Richard Stone Reeves was among the crowd of 30,000 applauding War Admiral's triumph in the Belmont Stakes (and Triple Crown championship) at New York's Belmont Park on Saturday, June 5, 1937. Transfixed by the beauty of the Thoroughbreds and the color and excitement of the sport on that clear, warm 80-degree afternoon, the young man decided to become an equine artist. Unbeknownst at the time, Richard Stone Reeves would go on to become America's greatest painter of champion racehorses.
Art is the supreme achievement of man's talents and passion in bringing the beauty and majesty of the horse to life. Epitomizing the splendor and magnificence of the horse are the works of such famous equine painters and sculptors as George Stubbs, Edgar Degas (more commonly associated with ballet dancers than race horses), Frederic Remington, Sir Alfred J. Munnings, and Richard Stone Reeves.
Ask a horse racing fan what is the oldest Derby in America, and the answer will undoubtedly be the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. Research would show that answer to be wrong. Some 11 years before the Kentucky Derby's inaugural in May 1875, the Jersey Derby was run during the Civil War in June 1864 in Paterson, New Jersey. The race in Paterson gave The Garden State the distinction of having the oldest Derby in the United States.
Beryl Markham's life was one of adventure. She was a pioneer aviator - the first woman to be given a commercial license in Africa and the first person to make a solo journey over the Atlantic Ocean from east (England) to west (Nova Scotia) in 1936 - and a highly successful horse trainer, who won the prestigious Kenya Derby eight times. Markham was also the author of a beautifully penned memoir, West with the Night (1942) that included some of the finest stories ever written about horses.
Santa Fe was gray and cold with intermittent rain. Adjacent to a fast moving creek in an open pasture, Confederate horsemen of the 5th Texas Mounted Volunteers formed three lines, four abreast. With pistols waving in the air, the Texans advanced towards the blue-clad Union infantrymen, who were kneeling in close formation. Pipers and drummers played in the rear. Suddenly, a sharp, loud volley of rifle fire rang out from the Federal infantrymen, and the air was filled with smoke. Through the smoky haze that floated skyward, the Texans fired their pistols and retreated with their horses.
They appeared like apparitions from the past; a vision so unexpected and startling that it will always remain an unforgettable memory. It occurred on a beautiful sunny and crisp fall day on the historic battlefield at the Gettysburg National Military Park in Adams County, Pennsylvania.

While in New Mexico in October, I picked up a copy of the The Santa Fe New Mexican. The headline read: "Horse dies, rider hurt in movie mishap." The article by Natalie Storey reported that the mishap took place on the set of a Western being filmed, the 3:10 to Yuma starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, in Diablo Canyon west of Santa Fe.
Antoine-Louis Barye's sculptures were often experimental and controversial. As the leading animal sculptor or animalier of the 19th century, Barye's artworks ran the breath of subjects from game animals and mythological creatures to animal combat scenes and equestrian statues. His work impressed many and inspired others: Auguste Rodin was an early pupil and was an inspiration to Henri Matisse and Paul Cézanne.
In a world of high-technology and sophisticated forensics, the announcement of the newest weapon in the arsenal of the New York Police Department (NYPD) to combat crime came as a surprise, as the readers of The New York Times learned last April. On the Times  front page, an article titled "Police Turn to the Stable for Crime Fighting Clout" told how the NYPD's 85 mounted patrols were successfully used in combating crime in tough neighborhoods such as central Brooklyn, patrolling Times Square late at night, and leading search-and-rescue operations in brush alongside rivers and wooded areas.
Two Parts
After the United States and Peru each finished with 34 Н faults at the 1941 National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden for the International Low Score Competition Challenge Trophy, a jump-off took place on the evening of November 7. It was decided that two horses of each team should jump separately. The pair with the lowest score would be declared the winner. With the 10,000 spectators on the edge of their seats, the first American jumper, Captain Franklin F. Wing Jr., one of the best riders of his era, trotted into the arena on a brown gelding with a white blaze named Democrat.
Forever etched in the memories of those that watched the funeral of President John F. Kennedy on television in November 1963 were the heart-wrenching scenes of those sorrowful days. There were the images of the grieving young widow Jacqueline, her small children John Jr. and Caroline, the crowds lining the procession route, and a handsome jet black horse with a white star, which was the "caparisoned" or riderless horse that walked behind the coffin bearing the slain President. The horse was named Black Jack.
Ronald Reagan was a prolific letter writer. It is estimated that he wrote more than 10,000 letters in his life, corresponding with a wide array of people from the famous to ordinary citizens, as well as friends and neighbors. As one reads many of the personal hand-written letters that have been uncovered and published from the archives of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, the reader is impressed with his eloquent writing style and, more importantly, reminded of those qualities that made him special as a person-his charm, humor, warm regard for people, and love of life.
Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner who shattered his right hind leg in the Preakness Stakes, reminded racing fans that the path to the Triple Crown and immortality is a combination of both luck and talent. To see the truth in that maxim, one has only to look back 60 years to 1946 at the most unlikely Thoroughbred to win the Triple Crown. The Thoroughbred's name was Assault.
There was a chill wind with bursts of rain at the Grand National. On that eventful day 50 years ago, March 24, 1956, one of the great unexplained mysteries of horse racing took place at Aintree Racecourse. Ironically, the jockey who was at the center of the mysterious affair was Dick Francis, who would later become the grand master of British mystery writing.

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I am a writer, a new member of the society and live in New York, USA.

In January 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt's closest confidant. Jock Colville, Churchill's Assistant Private Secretary wrote the following in his diary:

"12 January 1941, Ditchley....We saw several films including Night Train to Munich [Note: The 1940 film starred Margaret Lockwood and Rex Harrison], which I had seen before. From midnight till 2:00 a.m. the PM, smoking a phenomenally large cigar, paced about in front of the fire at the far end of the Library and gave, for Hopkins' benefit, an appreciation of the war up to date."



Margaret Lockwood
1934


In the summer of 1934, film producer Alexander Korda asked Winston Churchill to produce a script for a new film titled The Reign of King George V . The film was to dramatize twenty-five years of British history from the 1910 coronation of King George V to his Silver Jubilee in 1935.

Churchill submitted a draft screenplay to Korda in 1934. Korda said his screenplay was a "really splendid basis for preliminary work." However, Korda thought the script had too much politics. In January 1935, Churchill submitted a revised script.


King George V (seated, center) with eight sovereigns at Windsor for the funeral of Edward VII,
20 May 1910-probably the last gathering of so many European monarchs.
Standing (l-r): King Haakon VII of Norway, Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, King Manuel II of Portugal, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George I of Greece, and King Albert I of Belgium. Seated (l-r): King Alfonso XIII of Spain, George V, King Frederick VIII of Denmark. (Wikimedia Commons).





In December 1908, My African Journey by Winston Churchill was published in London by Hodder & Stoughton in a printing of 15,500 copies. One of my favorites, Churchill's My African Journey is a travelogue based on his tour of Britain's territories in East Africa in his first ministerial Government post.

My African Journey is a fascinating account of his adventures with his travelling party from when they arrived on 28 October 1907 at Mombasa, a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. Afterwards, Churchill and his group traveled to Nairobi, Kisumu, Entebbe, and then down the Nile to Lado, Kodok, Khartoum, and finally back to Cairo and Alexandria.

In My African Journey , Churchill writes of his stirring experiences in big-game hunting combined with sightseeing and official meetings. The reader follows Churchill's exciting exploits through his superb writing.


On 29 October 1934, The New York Times reported that Alexander Korda, head of productions for London Films, planned to produce a film based on the career of King George V of England. The film titled "The Reign of King George V" would describe the changes in the fortunes of Great Britain during the prior two and a half decades, or from the King's 1911 coronation to his silver jubilee in 1935.

Events to be presented in the film were the emancipation of women, the developments in aviation, the progress in transportation, the unification of the empire and the crisis of the World War. It was also reported that Winston Churchill was at work on the script that was expected to be ready for film adaptation within several weeks.



Alexander Korda
1936


Queen Elizabeth II and Winston Churchill had a profound and enduring friendship. Each had a great fondness for horse racing. Prior to her ascending the throne, Princess Elizabeth invited the eminent political leader to a luncheon at Hurst Park Racecourse in Surrey before the running of the Winston Churchill Stakes on Saturday, 14 May 1951.

The Winston Churchill Stakes was run at a distance of just over one mile. Churchill's first thoroughbred racehorse, a five-year old grey named Colonist II, was one of the runners. Also running was his Majesty King George VI's black filly Above Board, for which Princess Elizabeth had high regard. Five other challengers included Cantarello II, Fast Fox, Selskar Abbot, Star Spangled Banner and Tourette.



Winston Churchill and Colonist II





Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden
At Spencer Wood, the residence of Lieutenant Governor of Quebec
August 1943
©Public Domain

Winston Churchill respected Anthony Eden's decision to resign in 1938 as Foreign Secretary in protest of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy towards Mussolini's Italy. When Churchill succeeded Chamberlain as Prime Minister, he immediately appointed Eden the Secretary of State for War on 11 May 1940. For virtually the next fifteen years, Eden was one of Churchill's closest confidants and acted as his deputy. In April 1955, Anthony Eden succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister.

Eden: The Early Years
Anthony Eden, in full Robert Anthony Eden, was born 12 June 1897 at Windlestone Hall, County Durham, England into a conservative family of landed gentry. Anthony was the third son of four of Sir William Eden, the 7th Baronet of West Auckland and 5th Baronet of Maryland, a former colonel and local magistrate.


On 15 July 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. In his speech, Kennedy quoted a statesman and writer he admired most.

"The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high, to permit the customary passions of political debate. We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: If we open a quarrel between the present and past, we shall be in danger of losing the future."

As a youngster, John Kennedy had an interest in history and was introduced to Churchill's writings. When American socialite Kay Halle, a Kennedy and Churchill family friend, visited fifteen-year-old Jack in the hospital, at his bedside was a volume of The World Crisis, Churchill's account of the First World War.



The Oval Office, 9 April 1963. President John F. Kennedy sign's Churchill's honorary citizenship documents.

On 18 February 1901, Winston Churchill, a member of the Conservative Party, gave his maiden speech in the House of Commons. Churchill presented his views and recommendations concerning the state of affairs in South Africa. Following his widely recognized successful speech, Churchill received many congratulatory letters. One was from Henry Campbell-Bannerman unanimously elected in February 1899 as the Leader of the Opposition Liberal Party in the House of Commons. The letter read:

18 February 1901
House of Commons

Dear Mr Churchill,
I hope you will allow me to say with how much pleasure I listened to your speech.
With sincere congratulations.

Yours very truly,
H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN



Henry Campbell-Bannerman

In talking with my mother Mimi about her time at the Blechhammer Concentration Camp, she told me: "A Jew from Vienna named Karl Demerer served as the 'camp elder.' In various instances, he stood up to the camp authorities and helped other prisoners."



Karl Demerer

Demerer continually tried to make life easier for the prisoners and protect them from being transported to the gas chambers. He would negotiate and offer money and jewelry to the supervisors of the camp to keep the prisoners alive.

Blechhammer Concentration Camp
The personal courage and heroism exhibited by Karl Demerer begins with the story of the Blechhammer Concentration Camp. Blechhammer was established by the Germans in March 1942 near the town of Kozle, a distance of 18.5 miles (30 km) west of Gliwice, Poland.

Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon GBE, CMB was an aviator, art collector and politician. In Parliament he served twice as Under-Secretary of State for Air. A wealthy and prominent social host, Sassoon welcomed many well-known guests. He entertained them at Port Lympne, Kent, on the Channel coast; and Trent Park in Hertfordshire. Sassoon also owned a London mansion on Park Lane. Among his guests were Queen Mary; King Edward VIII and Mrs. Simpson, and King George VI with Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth. The arts were represented by George Bernard Shaw, Kenneth Clark, Noel Coward, Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin. Political guests included David Lloyd George, Anthony Eden, Lawrence of Arabia and Winston and Clementine Churchill.

Philip, born 1888, was descended from the Baghdadi Jewish Sassoon family and the Rothschilds. His mother, Lady Aline Caroline de Sassoon, was the daughter of Gustave Samuel de Rothschild. His father Edward, 2nd Baronet, ran David Sassoon & Co, a trading company selling precious metals, silks, spices, wool, wheat and cotton. Siegfried Sassoon, one of the leading poets of the First World War, was Philip's second cousin.

Upon his graduation from Edinburgh University in 1881, Arthur Conan Doyle, twenty-two years of age, received his Bachelor of Medicine and Master of Surgery qualifications. In his autobiography, Memories and Adventures, he wrote: "It has always been my intention to take a voyage as ship's surgeon when I had taken my degree, as I could in this way see something of the world, and at the same time earn a little of the money which I so badly needed if I were ever to start in practice for myself."

As Conan Doyle considered openings for a ship's surgeon, he surprisingly received a telegram telling him to come to Liverpool. He was to take medical responsibility of the African Steam Navigation Company's SS Mayumba bound for the West Coast of Africa. Conan Doyle had virtually forgotten that he had put his name down for consideration as ship's surgeon of a passenger ship.
After Winston Churchill returned to England from South Africa in July 1900, he decided to embark on a tour of 30 lectures in Britain. The subject of Churchill's lectures titled The War As I Saw It centered on his exploits during the Boer War.

The lectures were only a temporary livelihood necessitated by his need to earn money. For Churchill, the income was crucial after winning his first Parliamentary election as MP for Oldham on October 1, 1900, as members were not paid salaries until 1911.

Walter H. Thompson and Edmund Murray are considered the two most notable personal bodyguards that protected Winston Churchill. The use of personal bodyguards for Churchill began in 1921 and continued for the rest of his life. The story of the remarkable men that guarded Churchill exemplifies courage and devotion that never wavered.


Walter H. Thompson
On 9 November 1920, the Director of Intelligence at Scotland Yard told Churchill that a Sinn Fein cell in Glasgow had decided there should be kidnapping reprisals in Britain for reprisals in Ireland. Among those to be kidnapped were Churchill and Lloyd George. Churchill was warned not to go to Scotland 'for the next few days or weeks'. Scotland Yard also provided him with a personal armed bodyguard, Walter Henry Thompson.

Thompson's temporary appointment to remain with Churchill for only a few weeks lasted nine and a half years. While in retirement in 1939, Thompson was recalled to protect Churchill and served with him for another six years until the war ended.




Churchill test-firing a Sten gun, with Walter H. Thompson looking on (in double-breasted suit), 1941

On 29 October 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited his alma mater, the Harrow School. In his speech, Churchill quoted Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1895 -1936) the English poet, short-story writer and novelist, who in 1907 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Speaking to Harrow students, Churchill said: "Another lesson, I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must "meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same."

In 1915, Kermit Roosevelt, the son of President Theodore Roosevelt, was appointed an honorary captain in the British Army. Roosevelt served under General Allenby in Palestine, saw active service in Mesopotamia with the royal field artillery, and was awarded the Military Cross. In 1916, Roosevelt transferred to the American First Division and commanded an artillery battery from 1917-18. When World War II began, Roosevelt once again sought to serve in the British military.




Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an inexhaustible writer before and after Sherlock Holmes. According to the Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia, he wrote more than 240 fictions of all genres, which included history, fantasy, adventure, science-fiction, crimes, drama, and war. Conan Doyle also wrote more than 1200 other works such as essays, pamphlets, articles, letters to the press, poems, interviews, and plays on subjects as politics, spiritualism, war, crimes, and more.

Based on a series of six articles in Great Thoughts Magazine from 5 May to 30 June 1894 and in The Associated Press (The Philadelphia Inquirer, etc.) from 20 May and 15 July 1894, Conan Doyle published a fascinating book in 1907. Titled Through The Magic Door, it is an anthology of classic literature that Conan Doyle most revered.

On 10 March 2015, The Guardian published an untold story titled: "How wartime Britain planned to give the U.S. a copy of the Magna Carta." The Guardian reported: "A secret British plan to butter up the US during the Second World War by handing over a copy of Magna Carta has been revealed by the British Library."

Previously unpublished documents included March 1941 Minutes prepared by the Foreign Office for Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It proposed that the well-preserved Lincoln Magna Carta, which belonged to Lincoln Cathedral in Linoln, England, be presented as a gift to the United States. Its purpose was to help muster American public Opinion in support of the war.

The latest and best edition of Churchill's book of biographical sketches, Great Contemporaries, added several important essays to the 1938 revised and extended edition. One concerns the imaginative English writer H.G. Wells who, with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback, was among the fathers of science fiction "I am a great reader of Wells," Churchill wrote: It must be more than thirty years ago that I first discovered his "Select Conversations with An Uncle" or read in the pages of the "Strand Magazine" his "Queer Side of Things." I responded at once to his intellectual stimulus and literary dexterity when I came upon "The Time Machine," that marvelous philosophical romance, not unworthy to follow at some distance, but nevertheless less in the train of Gulliver's Travels, I shouted with joy. Then I read all his books.

King George V succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father, Edward VII, in May 1910. In February that year, Winston Churchill became Home Secretary. To this day he remains the youngest such since Sir Robert Peel in 1822. Roy Jenkins described the Home Office as a "plank of wood" from which many other departments have since been carved. In 1910, however, the Home Office held vast authority over domestic affairs. Among these was the prison system, where Churchill supported reform and reduction of sentences. (Prisons have since devolved to the Ministry of Justice.)

Six months in office, Churchill assisted the new King on a case of libel that had circulated for years. As Prince of Wales, George V was said to have married secretly in 1890, when he was a Navy midshipman. His alleged wife was the elder daughter of the Mediterranean Fleet's Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour. The charge was denounced by the Dean of Norwich Cathedral in July 1910.Six months in office, Churchill assisted the new King on a case of libel that had circulated for years. As Prince of Wales, George V was said to have married secretly in 1890, when he was a Navy midshipman. His alleged wife was the elder daughter of the Mediterranean Fleet's Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour. The charge was denounced by the Dean of Norwich Cathedral in July 1910.

Following the death of his wife Louisa from tuberculois in July 1906, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle married Jean Elizabeth Leckie in the summer of 1907. As he dedicated time to Jean's activities, Conan Doyle no longer focused his attention on writing fiction. However, during the first years of his marriage, Conan Doyle undertook a new interest that consumed a great deal of time; he wrote and produced stage plays based on his own works.

In Winston and Clementine: The Personal Letters of the Churchills (1999), Mary Soames wrote of her father: "Winston was never a 'ladies man', yet he greatly admired beautiful, spirited women and over these last years formed several attachments. His first great love was Pamela Plowden, daughter of the Resident at Hyderabad, whom he had met as a young subaltern in India." Although he proposed marriage to her that she did not accept, Winston Churchill's friendship with Pamela Plowden, later Countess Lytton, would continue for the rest of his life.

As a junior officer with the Fourth Hussars stationed in Bangalore, Churchill first met Pamela Frances Audrey Plowden, born 17 April 1875 in India, in November 1896. Ms. Plowden's father, Trevor Chichele-Plowden of the Indian Civil Service, was the diplomatic representative of the British government in Hyderabad.

John Colville in The Churchillians wrote that one of the men for whom Churchill had regard for in his youth was the headmaster of Harrow School, J.E.C. Welldon. James Edward Cowell (J.E.C.) Welldon was educated at Eton and attended King's College, Cambridge. He was ordained as a deacon in 1883 and a priest in 1885. In May 1883, Welldon was appointed master of Dulwich College. In July 1885, he resigned to become the headmaster of Harrow School; a position Welldon held from 1885 to 1898.

After Lord Randolph decided that Winston would attend Harrow, Churchill, age thirteen, was required to take the Entrance Examination on 18 March 1888. Churchill was accompanied by Ms. Charlotte Thomson, who founded and headed the preparatory school in Brighton that he attended. However, as explained in My Early Life, examinations for Churchill "were a great trial."

It has been written that the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle often centered on hard fought crusades, which were often unpopular causes. His personal sense of honor meant more to him than public opinion. One such affair indicative of Conan Doyle's strong conviction for truth and justice was the case of Oscar Slater.

The case of Oscar Slater began on the evening of 21 December 1908 in Glasgow, when a wealthy elderly spinster named Marion Gilchrist sent her companion, Helen Lambie, around the corner to purchase a newspaper. When Ms. Lambie returned home ten minutes later, an unknown man rushed past her in the flat into the street. As Ms. Lambie entered the parlor, she found Ms. Gilchrist had been beaten to death.

In the summer and autumn of 1929, Winston Churchill enjoyed a three-month tour of North America, his first visit to that continent since 1901. With his son Randolph, brother Jack and nephew Johnny, he traveled east to west in Canada, then down to the U.S and from California east to New York. As ardent film fans, their visit to Hollywood was a highlight for the party.

Lady Randolph Churchill loved the literary world. She particularly enjoyed meeting American authors that visited England and often spoke with delight a story of her friend Mark Twain. Lady Randolph told of a London gathering where Twain asked Mrs. J. Comyns-Carr, "You are an American aren't you?" Mrs. Carr explained that she was of English stock and had been brought up in Italy. "Ah, that's it," answered Twain. "It's your complexity of background that makes you seem American. We are rather a mixture, of course. But I can pay you no higher compliment than to mistake you for a countryman of mine." While American born Lady Randolph found Twain's comments extremely amusing, it is doubtful that Mrs. Comyns-Carr did.

"Imagine: The Club, exclusive, immemorial, resonant with the noises of gentlemen dining. Imagine, though, two splendid braggadocios, quite thinly disguised under the pseudonyms of Winston Churchill and F.E. Smith. Our heroes suspect the pitter-patter of black balls. So what do they do? They start The Other Club. Here, too, gentlemen may dine, insulated from hoi polloi; and, if the members seem to be mainly of a political or military vocation, then where else would you look for gentlemen except landed, on the grouse-moor?" --Christopher Ford in The Guardian, 13 November 1971

Landed gentlemen who hunted grouse on their moors also enjoyed each other's company when in London. The gentlemen's club, members-only and strictly private, was their creation, originally established in the 18th century. One of the most renowned gentlemen's dining clubs in London was The Club, also known as the Literary Club, founded in 1764 by the artist Joshua Reynolds and the essayist and lexicographer Samuel Johnson.

On 25 October 1911, Winston Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. As a minister of the Crown, Churchill received two excellent benefits. First, was his official residence, Admiralty House. Second was the Admiralty yacht Enchantress, a superbly built vessel of 4,000 tons, which he used to visit the many hundreds of naval establishments and bases in the British Isles and the Mediterranean. For the duration of his near three peacetime years as First Lord, Churchill spent a total of eight months on the Enchantress.

On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill gave his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech, The Sinews of Peace, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. During his address, Churchill said: "I have often used words which I learned fifty years ago from a great Irish-American orator, a friend of mine, Mr. Bourke Cockran. 'There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother; she will provide in plentiful abundance food for all her children if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.'"

Churchill's acquaintance with Bourke Cockran came about from the American's friendship with Winston's mother, Lady Randolph Churchill. Cockran and Lady Randolph first met in Paris in March 1895. At the time, Cockran had recently lost his wife and Lady Randolph, born Jennie Jerome, was a widow.

At the age of 57, Winston Churchill accompanied by his wife Clementine and daughter Diana arrived in New York City on the North German Lloyd liner Europa on Friday, December 11, 1931. The purpose of Churchill's visit to the United States was to conduct a forty-lecture tour to help his finances. He anticipated the talks would result in at least £10,000, or possibly more depending on attendance. In addition, Churchill was paid £8,000 by Esmond Harmsworth of the Daily Mail for a series of articles 'on America’s situation, prospects, and mood.' ...

While crossing, a northbound automobile, some newspaper reports reported it was a taxicab owned and operated by Mario Contasino, a jobless young unemployed mechanic looking for work, bore down on Churchill. Before Contasino, who had been driving for more than eight years without ever having an accident, could stop the car, Churchill was knocked to the street.

In January 1907, Arthur Conan Doyle walked into the lobby of his hotel. He was there to meet a man who was trying to clear his name of a crime for which he had served three years in prison. "The first sight which I ever had of Mr. George Edalji was enough in itself to convince me both of the extreme improbability of his being guilty of the crime for which he was condemned, and to some at least of the reasons which had led to his being suspected," wrote Conan Doyle.

On 9 December 1905, Winston Churchill, a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP), was given his first government post by Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as the new Under-Secretary for the Colonies. As then required by law, as a MP taking a government position, Churchill had to contest a parliamentary seat. The next day, 10 December 1905, Churchill was electioneering as the key speaker at a Manchester North West public protest meeting on the ill treatment of Jews in Russia.

As a third of the Manchester North West electorate was Jewish, a gathering of Jewish residents were present to hear Churchill speak. On the meeting's podium when Churchill spoke was a Jewish chemist and Zionist named Dr. Chaim Weizmann.

As the former editor of the Aviation & Military Video Club, Mike Lepine has been instrumental in bringing much rare archival film footage to the public for the first time. As an author, he has also written over thirty books. Here he considers Winston Churchill's relationship with his generals during World War II. Accompanying the text is a fascinating array of color and black and white photographs.

As an introduction, Levine presents an illustrated WWII Chronology. He follows with an excellent in-depth biography of Churchill with photographs covering his life. There follow individual stories of various generals and their relations with the prime minister.

In the summer of 1887, as part of the Golden Jubilee celebration of the reign of Queen Victoria, the American soldier, Bison hunter, and showman Colonel William "Buffalo Bill" Cody brought to London his famous show "Buffalo Bill's Wild West." Cody's show was a circus-like attraction with a Cowboy and Indian theme created to provide spectators with an education of the American West. The show also offered entertainment with bronco riding and demonstrated the handling of bovine and equine livestock. Cody also displayed cowboy roping and other herdsmen skills.

British military forces still tend to use one-word code names for military operations, in keeping with guidelines established by Winston Churchill in World War II. "Ellamy," for example, was the code name for Britain's 2011 military action in Libya. Recent American code names, in contrast, tend to be two word slogans, such as Operations "Odyssey Dawn," "Enduring Freedom," "Desert Storm" and "Iraqi Freedom"—a kind of "public relations" style of which Churchill would probably not approve.

In January 1907, Arthur Conan Doyle walked into the lobby of his hotel. He was there to meet a man who was trying to clear his name of a crime for which he had served three years in prison. "The first sight which I ever had of Mr. George Edalji was enough in itself to convince me both of the extreme improbability of his being guilty of the crime for which he was condemned, and to suggest some at least of the reasons which had led to his being suspected," wrote Conan Doyle.

In Great Contemporaries published in London in 1937, Winston Churchill wrote: "The three most famous generals I had known in my life won no great battles over a foreign foe. Yet their names, which all begin with 'B,' are household words. They are General Booth, General Botha and General Baden Powell. To General [William] Booth we owe the Salvation Army; to General [Louis] Botha, United South Africa; and to General [Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth] Baden Powell, the Boy Scout Movement."

During the last week in March 1941, as a result of Britain's capability to read Japanese top-secret diplomatic telegrams, Winston Churchill was able to follow the travels and discussions of the Japanese Foreign Minister, Yosuke Matsuoka in Rome, Berlin, and Moscow. While in Berlin, Matsuoka was pressed, on Hitler's authority, to agree to a Japanese attack on British possessions in the Far East, as soon as possible. Matsuoka was told an attack on Singapore would be a decisive factor in the 'speedy overthrow of England'. After reading Matsuoka's own top-secret account of the German pressure, Churchill sent him a message.

Prior to the Potsdam Conference with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in July 1945, President Harry Truman and Prime Minister Winston Churchill took separate tours of the nearby German capital. Wearing a lightweight military uniform against the heat, and accompanied by British military officials and his daughter Mary, Churchill visited the former Reich Chancellery, which had been Hitler's official residence, office, and bunker.

Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the United States Congress declared war on Japan, and three days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Anxious to discuss war priorities with his newest ally, Churchill moved quickly, sailing to Hampton Roads, Virginia and flying on to Washington less than a week after the attack. He would spend over three weeks in the U.S. and Canada.

On 1 December 1923, Collier's, The National Weekly, an American Magazine, published an article by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about his experiences in politics and twice being defeated for Parliament. Inside the Five Cents magazine, his article was titled Thus Ended My Career in Politics. In his piece, Conan Doyle answered three questions: first, what were his reasons in entering politics; two, what were his campaign experiences, and three, what lessons did he learn?

On a visit to Blarney Castle, near Cork, Ireland, my wife and I were surprised to see a humorous cartoon plaque depicting Churchill and comic actor Oliver Hardy. It shows them squeezed together on the steps of the castle tower, ascending to reach the legendary Blarney Stone. It reads in part: "You will learn more of the story of the stone as you pass the Castle Chamber. Take care as you mount the winding stairs and, if you think the way is narrow, consider the two who went before you.... Eloquence is not just a gift for the sylph-like."

After meeting in Canada with Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker and in New York with recently elected President Kennedy in May 1961, Israel's Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, flew to London to confer with Prime Minister Macmillan and British Foreign Secretary Lord Home. While there, Ben-Gurion sent Sir Winston Churchill a message asking if they could meet. Churchill gladly agreed, and both men, who were friends for years by correspondence, met for the first time at Churchill's home at 28 Hyde Park Gate on 2 June 1961.

In October 2012, my wife and I visited Gibraltar, the famous rock at the entrance to the Mediterranean, British since 1713. We looked forward to seeing the legendary Gibraltar apes, about which I had read so much. Seeing the monkeys up close on a sunny autumn day was a magnificent experience. The handsome macaques were on the rocks overlooking the strait that separates Gibraltar from Morocco in Africa.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, renowned for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, was a prolific writer. His wide range of works included science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. An example of the breadth of Conan Doyle's creativity is seen between the Holmes novels Sign of Four (1890) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), in a desert adventure novel titled The Tragedy of the Korosko. First serialized in 1897 in The Strand Magazine, Conan Doyle wrote The Tragedy of the Korosko in 1898. Later, he adapted it into a play, Fires of Fate, which was then made into a 1923 silent film, and a 1932 sound movie.

At the age of twelve, Harriet Castor's first book, Fat Puss and Friends, about a cat she befriended, was published by Penguin. Since then Castor, who was born in Cambridge, has written over forty fiction and non-fiction books for children and young adults. Her latest (not her first) Churchill effort is a well-written and attention-grabbing mimi-biography.

"I have an announcement to make to the House pertaining to the Treaty signed between this country and Portugal in the year 1373 between His Majesty King Edward III and King Ferdinand and Queen Eleanor of Portugal." House of Commons, 12 October 1943.

In January 1952, Winston S. Churchill arrived in New York Harbor on the Queen Mary on a visit to the United States. Dorothy McCardle, society reporter of The Washington Post, reported a story told by members of WSC’s staff accompanying him from New York to Washington. In her delightful piece, dated 13 January 1952, McCardle humorously wrote that the Prime Minister had acquired a new title on his current visit to America; it was that of ‘Winnie,’ the bricklayer. Those travelling with Churchill told the story that the day before the “boss” left for the United States, he was asked to lay a foundation stone in Bristol.

At 7:00 pm on July 9, The Beckett Theatre in The Theatre Row Building in Manhattan was filled with attendees for a play reading of CHURCHILL AT BAY, How close was Britain to making peace with Hitler in May 1940? by the Irish play writer Robin Glendinning. The play reading was presented to complement the summer-long Churchill: The Power of Words Exhibition at the Morgan Library.

On 8 June 2012, The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, in keeping with the celebrated institution's conviction 'that meaningful engagement with literature, music, history, and art enriches lives, open minds, and deepens understanding,' opened a new exhibition showcasing Winston Churchill's use of spoken and written words titled Churchill: The Power of Words.Entering the exhibition hall one observes glass display cases that both circle the room and are situated in the center of the room. The items on display are arranged in chronological sequence of his life and are introduced by large posters with photographs. They include THE CHILD 1874-94; THE SOLDIER 1895-1900; THE YOUNG TRIBUNE 1901-32; THE WILDERNESS YEARS 1932-1939; THE FINEST HOUR 1940-44; THE GRAND ALLIANCE 1942-45; ELDER STATESMAN and THE TWILIGHT YEARS.

On 25 October 1900, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill and Arthur Conan Doyle found themselves as guest speakers at the annual dinner of the Pall Mall Club in London. The subject was the Boer War, where Conan Doyle, a Scottish physician and writer whose popular detective Sherlock Holmes first appeared in 1887, served as a volunteer doctor in the Langman Field Hospital at Bloemfontein. Churchill was a war correspondent and obtained national prominence when he escaped imprisonment from a Boer POW camp in Pretoria.

Edward R. Murrow graduated Washington State College in 1930. In 1935, he was hired as Director of Talks and Education by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). Two years later, Murrow was appointed head of the CBS European Bureau, and he and his wife, Janet Brewster Murrow, went to London. Little did they realize that their London sojourn would last nearly a decade, resulting in Murrow's immortal reports from the bomb-ravaged British capital, always beginning, "This is London.".

In Churchill: A Life, Martin Gilbert wrote that by the end of October 1932, Churchill had completed half of the first of his Marlborough volumes and had begun to think about his next literary work, A History Of The English-Speaking People.

With Hitler's Luftwaffe pounding London in September 1940, Edward R. Murrow, Chief European correspondent for the Columbia Broadcasting System, wanted to be closer to the story. For weeks, Murrow asked the Air Ministry for permission to send live radio broadcasts from London?s rooftops on the German bombing raids to America. The Air Ministry refused. The censors could not be sure what the American correspondent might report in a live broadcast.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, arrived on his second visit to the United States from Southampton aboard the SS Olympic of the White Star Line on May 20, 1914. Acclaimed in both Great Britain and America for his famous detective stories that were serialized and published in book versions on both sides of the Atlantic, he visited New York for six days before embarking for Canada to visit Jasper Park at the invitation of the Canadian Government. While in New York City, Conan Doyle, an avid sportsman who played cricket, skied, golfed, hiked, and rode horses, found time in a busy schedule to see America?s national sport, baseball, a game he came to admire greatly.
Sir Winston Spencer Churchill left such a large record, so much of it crafted by himself, that even the best scholars fail to get their arms around him. And there are so many fascinating side issues to distract us! Take for example his passion and genuine love of animals.
Edward R. Murrow was appointed Chief European correspondent for the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1937. Based on eyewitness reports beginning with Hitler's seizure of Austria in 1938, Murrow's daily radio broadcasts to America were heard by millions. A pensive and intelligent man who sought out and reported the truth, he was also an extremely courageous man, obtaining permission from the British Air Ministry to broadcast the German bombings from London's rooftops and flying on more than 25 combat missions over Germany. In a distinguished journalistic career that covered both radio and television over four decades, Murrow made more than 5,000 broadcasts.
Remembrance and Beyond was the theme of the First Annual International Day of Commemoration to honor the memories of the victims of the Holocaust held at the United Nations on January 27, 2006 - the 61st anniversary of the liberation of the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. For the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, their children, and grandchildren that came together in the General Assembly Hall on that sunny and chilly day in New York, it was a solemn gathering and a historic event.
On leave from Harvard University to work on his honors thesis, John F. Kennedy spent most of 1939 in London. When Hitler invaded Poland in September and England and France declared war, Jack Kennedy, his parents Joseph and Rose, brother Joe, and sister Kathleen were seated in the gallery at Parliament, where they intently listened to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and others including Winston S. Churchill, explain the British Government's decision to go to war. "Churchill's speech," Kennedy historian Robert Dallek wrote, "giving evidence of the powerful oratory that would later inspire the nation in the darkest hours of the war, left an indelible impression on Jack."

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Remy Nash started riding just before she turned six at the Waredaca Pony Club Riding Center in Laytonsville, MD. She acquired her Regional Level C2 at age 16, then began competing in the U.S. Eventing Association at the novice level with a leased horse named Beorn. Today, Remy leases a horse named Boo, and they compete for the University of Kentucky Eventing Team. At the University of Kentucky, Remy is a current Equines Studies student taking classes such as equine farm management and industry. To further her experience with horses, Remy spent the past summer as a DEFHR Equine Training Intern, where she had the opportunity to support staff trainers working with abused and neglected horses seized by animal protection agencies.
During the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, public attention in the United States focused on the Arabian Horse breed. At the time, each country in the world was invited to partcipate and exhibit, and Turkey chose to show 45 Arabian Horses in a "wild eastern" exhibiton. Among the imported Arabians presented were the mare Nejdme and the stallion Obeyran. Both horses subsequently became foundation animals' No. 1 and No. 2 in the Arabian Stud Book of America, which was later changed to the Arabian Horse Registry of America. One hundred and twenty five years after the Chicago World's Fair, a Polish Arabian horse, a 12 -year-old mare named Udaya [pronounced Uday-a] came to the attention of Days End Farm Horse Rescue.
Days End Farm Horse Rescue (DEFHR) was pleased to host two sessions this year of the popular Equus Coaching Workshop. Presented by PLink Coaching Center for Excellence (PCCE), the workshop is typically one-to-two days. During the Equus Coaching Workshop, PCCE team members had DEFHR participants work with a horse in a pen to pursue learning outcomes. Such goals included increasing a person's self-awareness around communication and leadership style; enhancing social awareness, and improving self-management practices.
One of the last wishes of a long-time Days End Farm Horse Rescue (DEFHR) supporter and volunteer with a terminal illness was to meet Officer Barney, a Belgian Draft, who was new at the farm. Barney, retired from the Baltimore Mounted Police, came to DEFHR during the time the volunteer became ill. Plans for her to come in January were delayed because of the blizzard. She then informed the farm that she would not be well enough to visit. Nicky Wetzelberger, DEFHR's Community Outreach Director, explained what happened next: "So, we staff decided to make her wish come true, and we took Barney to her".
The Magisterial District Court covering Lower Towamensing Township is located in Palmerton, PA. After nearly seven hours of testimony on April 20, 2016, Magisterial District Judge William Kissner found Dr. Clyde "Renny" Shoop, a Carbon County veterinarian, guilty on 10 of 11 counts of animal cruelty. The guilty counts included the neglect of eight horses. During the court proceeding, Ms. Lori McCutcheon, Director of Last Chance Ranch (LCR) in Quakertown, PA, testified for the prosecution, and Ms. DeEtte Hillman, Equine Program Director of Days End Farm Horse Rescue (DEFHR) in Lisbon, Maryland, presented evidence.
The mission of Days End Farm Horse Rescue (DEFHR), a nationally known nonprofit, volunteer-based animal welfare organization in Lisbon, Maryland, is to rescue and rehabilitate suffering horses, and to prevent abuse and neglect through education and community outreach. Having volunteered at DEFHR during my years living in Maryland, my wife and I had the opportunity to visit the farm in a recent visit from New York, where we now live.

While at the farm, I was surprised to learn that among many of the other horse breeds taken in so far this year, DEFHR now had four neglected and abandoned Thoroughbred racehorses.
There is a bronze plaque in Tecumseh Michigan that celebrates the esteemed horse of one of America's famous Army officers and Civil War Commanders, General George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876). The story of the horse, Don Juan, has added to the memorable exploits of General Custer, whose prominence is forever remembered in his death at the Little Big Horn.
Seventy-five years ago the road to the 1933 Preakness Stakes began with one of the most controversial finishes in the history of the Kentucky Derby. On May 6, 1933, in the last three-sixteenths at Churchill Downs, jockeys Don Meade on Brokers Tip and Herb Fisher on Head Play slashed, pulled, and tugged each other violently, as both horses galloped toward the finish line. After Brokers Tip and Head Play crossed the wire, Fisher stood in his stirrups and slashed Meade with his whip.
At the 1940 National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, Miss Jacqueline Bouvier on her chestnut mare Danseuse competed against the nation's best young equestrians in the finals of the A.S.P.C.A (American Society for Prevention of Cruelty of Animals) Alfred Maclay Trophy for Horsemanship and the A.S.P.C.A. Good Hands Cup.
Baltimore's weather was ideal on Saturday, May 14, 1932 for the running of the 57th Preakness Stakes. Mathias L. Daiger, secretary of the Maryland Jockey Club, estimated that 40,000 people, a record for Pimlico Race Course at that time, turned out on that lovely spring day 75 years ago. Among the crowd was a large gathering of dignitaries, including the Vice President of the United States, Charles Curtis, Maryland Governor Albert C. Ritchie, Baltimore Mayor Howard Jackson, and a score of Senators and Representatives from Washington, D.C.
On May 7, 1945, the day before Germany surrendered and the war in Europe ended, General George S. Patton, Jr. and Robert Patterson, the Undersecretary of War, drove to Schloss Arco in nearby St. Martin im Innkreiss in Upper Austria to see the white Lipizzaner stallions of the famous Spanische Hofreitschule, or Spanish Riding School.
Bred, owned and raced by A.C Bostwick of New York, Mate was one of an exceptionally fine crop of Thoroughbreds foaled in 1928. So extraordinary was that yield that John Hervey, the distinguished horse racing historian, wrote there were none to equal them since the annus mirabilis of 1886, when the likes of Tremont, Hanover, Kingston, Firenze, and King came onto the American racing scene. For in addition to Mate, Bostwick's handsome golden chestnut, other exceptional foals of 1928 included Harry Payne Whitney's Equipoise, George D. Widener's Jamestown, Mrs. Payne Whitney's Twenty Grand, and Mrs. M. P. Allen's Vander Pool to name only some.
As one of the greatest equine artists of all times, Sir Alfred J. Munnings' paintings of thoroughbreds, horse fairs, huntsmen and hounds, and jockeys in silks on horseback are widely admired for their elegance, vibrant colors, contrast of sunlight and shadow, and sense of movement and expectancy. Also renowned for his English landscapes, Munnings depicted scenes of flowers, rivers, hills and colorfully costumed gypsies that roamed the countryside in horse-drawn caravans. As an accomplished artist, he also sculptured and composed ballads and verse.
War Admiral ridden by jockey Charley Kurtsinger won the Belmont Stakes and the Triple Crown at Belmont Park in New York on Saturday, June 5, 1937. In an electrifying performance, the chestnut colt ran the mile and a half course over a fast track at 2:28 3/5, which equaled the American record and broke the track record at Belmont Park established by his sire Man o' War in 1920. War Admiral's feat was even more remarkable because of the courage he displayed: the Thoroughbred had accidentally torn his heel in the starting gate, and it bled during the entire race.
Ordered by General Jonathan M. Wainwright to occupy a strategic coastal village on Luzon Island and hold it until American and Filipino troops arrived, Lt. Edwin P. Ramsey set out with two-horse-mounted columns of the 26th Cavalry (Philippine Scouts) on January 16, 1942. Riding his powerful charger, Bryn Awryn, a chestnut gelding with a small white blaze on his forehead, Lt. Ramsey and his cavalry troopers rode into Morong, where they fought advancing Japanese infantrymen.
With Baltimore in the midst of a heat wave, the Preakness Stakes was run at Pimlico on Saturday, May 9, 1930. That year the Maryland classic was the first leg of the Triple Crown, which consisted of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Almost 52,000 racing fans came out to Pimlico that day under sunny skies. Among the notables at the racecourse were the Vice President of the United States, Charles Curtis; U.S. Senator Millard Tydings; Governor Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland, and Mayor William Broening of Baltimore.
Winston Churchill took a respite from politics on Saturday, May 14, 1951. On that day, Princess Elizabeth invited the eminent statesman to a luncheon at Hurst Park before the running of the Winston Churchill Stakes, a race run at a distance of just over one mile. Churchill's thoroughbred, a five-year old grey named Colonist II, was one of the runners. Also running was His Majesty King George VI's black filly, Above Board, and five other challengers - Cantarello II, Fast Fox, Selskar Abbot, Star Spangled Banner, and Tourette.
In 1939, Bold Venture, the winner of the 1936 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, was added to Texas' famous King Ranch's breeding program. Four years later, he produced King Ranch's greatest champion: Assault, the first and only Texas-bred thoroughbred to win the Triple Crown (1946). In 1947, the King Ranch crop included another foal by Bold Venture. He was a chestnut with a white blaze born to Verguenza, (by Chicaro). By late 1948, the colt was one of three considered by the stable to have racing potential; the other two were Air Lift and Beau Max. Air Lift, a full brother to Assault, was rated first; Beau Max was also rated highly. However, the handlers of the colt were unsure about the chestnut colt. "He looked like he might be a good horse, or that he might not. We couldn't make up our minds. So we called him Middleground," Kleberg explained.
At the 1940 National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, Miss Jacqueline Bouvier on her chestnut mare Danseuse competed against the nation's best young equestrians in the finals of the A.S.P.C.A (American Society for Prevention of Cruelty of Animals) Alfred Maclay Trophy for Horsemanship and the A.S.P.C.A. Good Hands Cup.
Just off the second floor entrance to the Museum of Metropolitan Art's magnificent collection of "Nineteenth Century European Painting and Sculpture" in New York is a corridor that leads to the B. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Gallery. Hanging on the wall on the left hand side of the well-lit corridor, adjacent to Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier's painting Friedland, 1807, is a mammoth oil canvas - approximately 8 x 16 1/2 Н ft. (244.5 x 506.7 cm) - titled The Horse Fair. The painting is dated 1853-55 and signed by the French animal painter Rosa Bonheur, a remarkable woman and the most famous female artist of the nineteenth century.
Each horse has a story and a gentle chestnut-colored Haflinger mare named XOXO, which is pronounced zozo and stands for hugs and kisses, is no exception. Her story began a few years back at the notorious New Holland, Pennsylvania sales auction, where on a Monday morning, the Haflinger, and some other two hundred and fifty emaciated, neglected, and unwanted horses, was sold. Of that number, approximately sixty to one hundred were usually bought by so called "Killer Buyers," who transported them to slaughterhouses in the United States and Canada, where they were killed and sent abroad for human consumption.
Walking through the metal gate for the first time at the entrance of Days End Farm Horse Rescue in Lisbon, Maryland, I saw the newest arrivals grazing in the small paddocks, an area that adjoined the white and dark green outside stalls of the main barn. They were some of the 50 or so abused, neglected, and unwanted horses living on the farm that had been impounded by the state's animal control bureau.
Never forgetting that children wanted action, conflict, and suspense, Marguerite Henry's stories have delighted generations of children. Spanning a long and illustrious career as a writer - she lived until the age of 95 - Henry wrote more than sixty books. Many of her works won major honors and awards in the field of children's literature, including Justin Morgan Had a Horse; Misty of Chincoteague; King of the Wind; Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague; Brighty of the Grand Canyon; Black Gold; Mustang, Wild Spirit of the West; Gaudenzia: Pride of the Palio and San Domingo: The Medicine Hat Stallion.
While frolicking in a meadow on the famous King Ranch in South Texas in 1943, a thoroughbred weanling named Assault stepped on a sharp object, which went through the frog and out of the wall of the hoof of his right forefoot. For the rest of his life the chestnut-colored colt walked or trotted with a limp. Remarkably, however, the horse ran a perfect gallop.
For some years, William Woodward, Sr., owner of the historic Belair Stud in Maryland and Chairman of the Jockey Club, harbored a dream. Woodward dreamt of sending one of his American thoroughbreds to England and challenging the nation's best horses in the English classics, most notably the Ascot Gold Cup at 2 1/2 miles. By 1935, Woodward thought he owned the perfect horse to race on the other side of the Atlantic: a large golden chestnut colt with a white blaze named Omaha.
Sadly, it ended where it began. Black Gold, the first race horse to win four derbies in one year (1924) - the Louisiana, Kentucky, Ohio State and Chicago Derbies and whose record stood for more than half a century - ran for the final time on January 18, 1928 at Fair Grounds in New Orleans, where five years earlier he had won at first asking. While racing down the stretch in the one-mile Salome Purse, Black Gold broke his left foreleg just above the ankle. The next day he was buried in the infield.
Traveling in two horse-mounted columns on January 16, 1942, Lt. Ed Ramsey set out with a troop of the 26th Cavalry of the Philippine Scouts on Luzon Island. Ramsey was ordered by General Jonathan Wainwright to occupy a strategic coastal village and hold it until American and Filipino troops arrived. Riding his powerful charger, Bryn Awryn, a chestnut gelding with a small white blaze on his forehead, Lt. Ramsey and his cavalry troopers rode into Morong, where they met and fought advancing Japanese infantry troops. Historians would later record the engagement as the last horse-mounted cavalry charge in United States military history.
Wearing Belair Stud's silks, a white blouse with red polka-dots and scarlet colored cap, jockey Earl Sande paraded Gallant Fox to the post at five o'clock. Both rider and horse received a warm applause from the spectators. Gallant Fox was a handsome dark bay horse distinguished by a blaze down his face, a black mane and tail, shadings of black low on the legs, and white coronets. The field of eleven lined up at the starting post at 5:02 p.m. for the Preakness Stakes. For the first time in a major American race, a mechanical starting gate was used.

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Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington
The final recording session took place in Hollywood on Frank Sinatra's 52nd birthday, 12 December 1967. When Sinatra entered the studio, the Ellington Orchestra was already there. Duke Ellington was seated at his Steinway & Sons piano arranging his six-pack of Cokes, cigarettes, ashtray, tissues and other sundries.

Harry Carney, Russell Procope, Johnny Hodges, and Paul Gonsalves were readying their saxophones. Jimmy Hamilton was unpacking his clarinet. Sam Woodyard was checking his drums and cymbals. Lawrence Brown, the trombonist, and trumpeters Cootie Williams and Cat Anderson were inspecting their pieces and arranging their music stands.

Sinatra asked where the arranger Billy May was? Wearing faded khakis and tennis shoes, May soon entered the studio and walked to the conductor's stand, where he clasped his hands together and yelled "One bar! One, two, three." The Ellington Orchestra responded and the session began. The album would be titled Francis A. & Edward K.



Advertising handbill for Duke Ellington's debut performance at Carnegie Hall
On Saturday, 23 January 1943, the Duke Ellington Orchestra made its debut at Carnegie Hall located at 881 Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets, New York City. Carnegie Hall was designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891. It is one of the most prestigious venues in the world for both classical and popular music.

Ellington's Carnegie Hall debut was subtitled, "Twentieth Anniversary Concert," a reference to 1923 when the Washingtonians, the original name of Duke Ellington's band, first came to New York and opened at the Kentucky Club. During the twenty years, Ellington had contributed to jazz as a pianist, composer, band leader and well-known personality. Ellington joined Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman and "Fats" Waller as the only jazz notables who performed concerts at Carnegie Hall.



Mercer Ellington
After Ellington's death in 1974, a bitter dispute arose between Betty McGettigan and Mercer Ellington over the rights to Queenie Pie . McGettigan maintained that because she had written some of the lyrics and inspired the development of some of the music, she claimed a right to share in the copyright of the opera. As it was impossible to produce Queenie Pie until McGettigan and Ellington could come to some agreement, it would take 12 years of often bitter negotiations before Queenie Pie would be produced in 1986.

Meanwhile, in 1983, Mercer received a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts to complete the score of Queenie Pie begun by his father before his death in 1974. Over the next three years, Mercer reworked the score with conductor Maurice Peress, who had worked on Queenie Pie with Duke Ellington.



Pages from Duke Ellington's opera "Queenie Pie"
Credit: University of California, Irvine
Duke Ellington used jazz, scat, blues, boogie-woogie, popular song and rhyming couplets in writing in his last known project before he died in 1974. While unfinished, Ellington, who titled his composition Queenie Pie, completed enough of it so that his son Mercer and other colleagues finished and performed it in 1986. In the years that followed, Queenie Pie would be performed in public only a handful of times.

What makes Queenie Pie so unique in the legacy of the famous composer, pianist, and jazz orchestra leader is that Queenie Pie is the only opera that Duke Ellington ever composed.

On Monday, 28 March 2022, The New York Times published a fascinating music review of a concert of Duke Ellington works by the America Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The catchy headline of the music review read: One Thing for Sure: Ellington Has Still 'Got That Swing.'

The music review was written by Seth Colter Walls, a critic and reporter. In addition to the United States, Walls's writings have been published in Britain in such newspapers and literary magazines, as The Guardian and London Review of Books.


Catherine Russell and the American Symphony during the concert of Duke Ellington
works at Carnegie Hall. © Matt Dine



Duke Elllington had a prominent affiliation with Yale University. It began on 12 June 1967, when Ellington was at Yale in New Haven in the U.S. state of Connecticut to receive an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree. Since Duke's formal education ended with his graduation from Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D.C. being honored at Yale was a highlight of his life.

The 45-minute ceremony awarding the honorary degrees followed a formal academic procession around the red brick Congregational Church on the New Haven Green, where the school held commencements in the 1700's. That day, Yale awarded 1,419 graduate and 938 baccalaureate degrees.



Al Hibbler

Albert George (Al) Hibbler was born blind at birth on August 16, 1915 in Tyro, Mississippi to Lucy Prokes and Hubert Hibbler. The family moved in 1925 to Arkansas. Hibbler did not attend school until he was 14 years-of age when he went to the Arkansas School for the Blind. There, Hibbler sang in the school choir as a soprano. By his teenage years, his voice had dropped and he was soon singing the blues in Arkansas and Texas bars.

Under patchy clouds in New York City on the afternoon of July 1, 1997, hundreds of people, including dignitaries, musicians, reporters, as well as fans, family and friends of Duke Ellington, were at the northeast corner of Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street.

The purpose of the gathering was the unveiling of a monument to Duke Ellington, who died in May 1974. The jet black, 25-foot-high memorial of Ellington was conceived by Bobby Short, the cabaret singer, and sculpted by Robert Graham. It took 18 years for the monument to reach fruition.

In October 1985, Mercer Ellington was filming a public service announcement at the Smithsonian's Anacostia Museum in Washington, D.C. During the event, Mercer mentioned to John Kinard, the Director of the Anacostia Museum, that although his father's tapes had been given to a radio station in Copenhagen, Denmark, his father's papers were still in his possession. Kinard suggested to Mercer that the Smithsonian might acquire the material.

In 1988, three years after the fortuitous encounter between Mercer and Kinard, the Smithsonian Institution acquired the enormous trove of Duke Ellington's papers, memorabilia, and orchestral manuscripts. The Smithsonian's Ellington Collection was further enlarged in 1991 with its purchase of additional material from Duke's sister, Ruth Ellington Boatwright.

In 1929, RKO Radio Pictures invited Duke Ellington and his orchestra to Astoria Studios in the borough of Queens in New York City to film a musical short film titled Black and Tan. It was the first film to feature Duke Ellington and His Orchestra performing as a jazz band. It was also the film debut of actress Fredi Washington. Black and Tan was directed by Dudley Murphy, who also directed St. Louis Blues with Bessie Smith in 1929. In addition to Ellington and Washington, Black and Tan starred Arthur Whetsol, Barney Bigard, Wellman Braud, Tricky Sam Nanton, and the Ellington Orchestra. RKO released Black and Tan on December 8, 1929.

In writing about the life and career of Duke Ellington, I have researched many books ranging from Duke's autobiography to excellent biographies. To learn more about Ellington, I have also researched American newspapers, which are an extremely important source of information. Few references about Ellington have been as vital to my research as African American newspapers such as The Afro-American, which began publication on August 13, 1892. The Afro-American's subtitle read: The Nation's Biggest All-Negro Weekly.

On January 12, 1926, Freeman Gosden and Charles Carrell debuted a two-man comedy series, which they created and starred in, titled Sam 'n' Henry on the WGN radio station in Chicago. In 1928, the radio program moved to a rival station, changed its name to Amos 'n' Andy, and became one of the most popular radio programs in American history. Although Gosden and Carrell were both white, the characters they played were two black men from the Deep South named Amos and Andy, who came to Chicago to seek their fortunes.

So popular was Amos 'n' Andy that in 1930, RKO Radio Pictures decided to film a Hollywood comedy based on the radio program. The film was to star Gosden and Carrell, the Amos 'n' Andy radio voices, and titled Check And Double Check, a catch phrase associated with the radio program.
The Earl Carroll Vanities, a music, murder, and romance revue, was a popular Broadway show of the 1930s. In 1934, it was the subject of a movie titled Murder at the Vanities produced by Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. Among the performers were Duke Ellington and his Orchestra.

Ellington's participation in Murder at the Vanities was due to Sam Coslow, a songwriter at Paramount, who was a former employee of the music publisher Irving Mills, who originally signed Duke Ellington. Coslow, who had contributed twenty songs to eight films at Paramount, insisted that Ellington be brought into Murder at the Vanities. After Paramount Pictures agreed, Ellington and the band boarded the train from Washington D.C. to Hollywood on Saturday, February 17, 1934 and arrived in Los Angeles on Monday, February 19, 1934.
Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film. Welles is best remembered for his innovative work in theatre, most notably Caesar (1937), a Broadway adaptation of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; in radio, in the 1938 broadcast The War of the Worlds, one of the most famous in the history of radio, and in film for Citizen Kane, which is ranked as one of the all-time greatest films.

In 1941, Orson Welles conceived It's All True as an omnibus film that mixed documentary and docufiction. It was to have been his third film for RKO, following Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). The original conception of It's All True was to be in four parts: The Story of Jazz, My Friend Bonito, The Captain's Chair, and Love Story.
On 21 February 2015, the Jazz world learned that Clark Terry, one of its much loved musicians, died at age 94 in Pine Bluff, Ark. The announcement of his death was posted by his wife, Gwen, on Clark's website. It read:

"Our beloved Clark Terry has joined the big band in heaven where he'll be singing and playing with the angels. He left us peacefully, surrounded by his family, students and friends. Clark has known and played with so many amazing people in his life. He has found great joy in his friendships and his greatest passion was spending time with his students. We will miss him every minute of every day, but he will live on through the beautiful music and positivity that he gave to the world. Clark will live in our hearts forever.
With all my love, Gwen Terry"
In a career that spanned seventy years, Terry was known as a trumpeter and a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz. He was one of the few musicians to work with the orchestras of Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Later in his life, Terry was a fervent advocate of jazz education.
On July 17, 1972, Governor Patrick J. Lucey proclaimed Duke Ellington Week in Wisconsin. Over the next five days, the highlight of the week's events was The Duke Ellington Festival at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In what proved to be a unique and rewarding experience for Duke and members of his Orchestra, the group spent the week teaching students at workshops and clinics, as well as conducting Ellington concerts.
On Friday, June 2, 1933, the Duke Ellington Orchestra left New York on the S.S. Olympic for its first tour in Europe. With Ellington were band members Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Otto Hardwick, Artie Whetsol, Cootie Williams, Fred Jenkins, Lawrence Brown, Juan Tizol,Joe Nanton, Wellman Braud, Fred Guy, Sonny Greer, and vocalist Ivie Anderson. Joining the orchestra were the dancer Bessie Dudley and tap dancers Bailey and Derby. The crossing across the Atlantic took one week, and the ship arrived on Friday, June 9, in Southampton where the Ellington orchestra embarked on a fifty-day tour of Great Britain, Holland and France.
On June 12, 1967, Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington was at Yale University in New Haven to receive an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree. In view of Duke's formal education having ended with his graduation from Armstrong Technical High School in Washington, D.C., his being at Yale to be honored was a highlight of his life. He said: "It's kind of like, the greatest, you know."
On 10 October 1958, the American public learned of the upcoming meeting between Duke Ellington and Queen Elizabeth II of England. The Chicago Daily Tribune ran the story with a witty headline: Untitled Duke Ellington to Meet a Real Queen. LONDON, Oct.9 [Reuters].

The story read: "The American jazzman, Duke Ellington will meet Queen Elizabeth II next week at a reception, the London News Chronicle reported Thursday. He was invited to a late night reception to mark the end of the Leeds, Yorkshire music festival Oct. 18. Ellington will be playing half a mile way but plans to dash there to meet the queen and her husband."
Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, the trombonist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, was one of the pioneers of the plunger mute and largely responsible for creating the characteristic Wah-wah effect. His animated growl and plunger sounds were the main feature in the band's early "jungle" sound that evolved during the band's late 1920s engagement at Harlem's Cotton Club.
In 1941, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra introduced Take the 'A' Train, a composition written by a young lyricist and pianist named Billy Strayhorn, who came to New York from Pittsburgh after Ellington expressed an interest in having him join the band. Take the 'A' Train was to become the Duke Ellington Orchestra's signature tune and one of Strayhorn's most well-known compositions that include Day Dream, Lotus Blossom, Chelsea Bridge, and Lush Life.
Gunther Schuller in The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz. 1930-1945 wrote that those that started the new history of Jazz piano must include the extraordinary accomplishments of Earl Hines, “Jelly Roll” Morton, Eubie Blake, and James P. Johnson, pianist, songwriter and composer. In Duke Ellington’s memoir, he acknowledges that of these famous pianists, Johnson’s 1921 composition Carolina Shout, which is considered the first recording of Jazz on a piano, had a profound influence on him.
The surprise 60th birthday party for Dr. Arthur C. Logan, the renowned physician and leading civil rights activist, was the idea of his wife Marian. Her first telephone call was to Duke Ellington. He gladly accepted the invitation to come and play with members of his orchestra at the birthday celebration on September 8, 1969 at the couples' duplex on West 88th Street in Manhattan.Duke Ellington was Arthur Logan's closest friend and patient. Their friendship began some thirty-two years earlier when the two men met in 1937 at the Cotton Club at 200 West Forty-Eighth Street at Broadway. At that time, Arthur Logan, son of the treasurer of Tuskegee Institute, was a physician. He had studied at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and was one of the first black graduates of the school.
On Monday, 20 September 1937 in New York, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra were at Master Records for a recording session. With Ellington were Arthur Whetsel, Cootie Williams, Freddy Jenkins (each on trumpet); Rex Stewart (coronet); Lawrence Brown (trombone); Barney Bigard (clarinet); Johnny Hodges (soprano sax/alto sax); Otto Hardwick (alto sax/bass sax); Harry Carney (clarinet/alto sax/baritone sax); Fred Guy (guitar); Billy Taylor (bass), and Sonny Greer (drums). Two takes were recorded of Chatterbox/Jubilesta, Harmony in Harlem, Dusk in the Desert, Diminuendo in Blue, and Crescendo in Blue. The records were released by Brunswick. Of those Ellington compositions, Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue were significant creative achievements for the composer, and their performance by the Orchestra some 30 years later, entered into Ellington legend.
On Wednesday, May 29,1929 Variety announced that Duke Ellington and his Orchestra have been signed to appear in Florenz Ziegfeld's new Broadway production Show Girl. Ziegfeld, a Broadway impresario, was known for his annual spectacular song-and-dance revues featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes. Duke's signing by Ziegfeld was confirmed by Norman Brokenshire of the Columbia Broadcasting System, which broadcasted Ellington's Jungle Band weekly. Show Girl's lyrics were written by Ira Gershwin and Gus Kahn. George Gershwin composed its music. The show's heroine, aspiring Broadway showgirl Dixie Dugan, was a character created by J.P. McEvoy, introduced in a novel titled Show Girl, first serialized in Liberty, a weekly general-interest magazine, and then published as a book by Simon & Schuster in 1928. On May 5,1929, The New York Times reported that Ruby Keeler, the wife of Al Jolson, had been signed for the principal feminine role of Dixie Dugan.
On Thursday, 21 March 1939, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra sailed from New York for Europe aboard the French liner Champlain for a 34-day, 28 concert tour. After arriving in Paris on Saturday, 1 April 1939, they attended a press conference, and played concerts at the Palais Des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Belgium on 2 April and at the Palais de Chaillot Auditorium in Paris on 3 and 4 April. While in Paris, some of Duke's musicians recorded with a famous French guitarist, Django Reinhardt. Gunther Schuler, in The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945, wrote about that session: "Among the all-time gems of small group jazz, virtually in a class by itself, is a quartet of sides recorded in Paris in April 1939 by the great French guitarist Django Reinhardt, and three members of Duke Ellington's orchestra: Barney Bigard, Billy Taylor, and Rex Stewart."
Jimmie Blanton joined the Duke Ellington band as a double bassist in 1939. Although he stayed with Duke for only two years before his untimely passing at the age of twenty-three, Blanton changed the way the double bass was used in jazz. He is credited with being the originator of pizzicato and bowed-based solos. Blanton also introduced melodic and harmonic ideas that were new to jazz, and he demonstrated the instrument's potential as a solo instrument.
On Friday, 2 June 1933, the Duke Ellington Orchestra left New York on the S.S. Olympic for their first tour in Europe. With Ellington were band members Barney Bigard, Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Otto Hardwick, Arty Whetsel, Cootie Williams, Fred Jenkins, Lawrence Brown, Juan Tizol, Joe Nanton, Wellman Braud, Fred Guy, Sonny Greer, and vocalist Ivie Anderson. Joining the orchestra was the dancer Bessie Dudley and tap dancers Bailey and Derby. The crossing across the Atlantic took one week, and the ship arrived on Friday, 9 June in Southampton where the Ellington orchestra embarked on a fifty-day tour of Great Britain, Holland, and France.
On October 24, 1931, the national edition of The Chicago Defender, the largest and most influential black weekly newspaper in the United States, published an article with the headline "President Hoover Meets the Duke's Party in Offices." It reported that during Duke Ellington's recent engagement in Washington, D.C., he was invited to the White House to meet President Herbert Hoover.
Despite being one of the most public people and warmly regarded entertainers of her era, Ivie Anderson, Duke Ellington's greatest vocalist, guarded her personal privacy. From the time that Ivie joined the Ellington Orchestra in Chicago 1931, her early life, particularly her family origins, have been shrouded in mystery. Today, some eighty years after Ellington and Anderson began their association, information about her in standard jazz references, as well as other biographical sources, is sketchy and often at odds. Most accounts have Ivie Anderson born in Gilroy, California on July 10, 1905. Others have her born in 1904. Others show her born in Oklahoma. No information is known about her family.
As the Duke Ellington Orchestra introduces the haunting melody to Stormy Weather in the 1933 film Bundle of Blues, the camera slowly moves to a draped-covered door. The band's vocalist Ivie Anderson appears from behind it. She is tall and slim. Her hair is short, and she is wearing a full-length white dress with short sleeves. The blackness of her skin is an effective counterpoint to the whiteness of her outfit. In a demure manner, she slowly walks to the front of the stage. Ivie glances at the orchestra momentarily and then turns to the camera. She begins to sing the evocative lines from the Koehler and Arlen tune Stormy Weather.
Vocalist Margaret Tynes performed the musical interlude at the Freedom Fund Dinner on November 22, 1957 in the grand ballroom at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York City. Accompanied by composer and pianist Billy Strayhorn, Ms. Tynes sang a selection from Duke Ellington's recent work, "A Drum Is a Woman." Sitting at the dais was Ellington himself, who was honored that evening for his efforts to eliminate discrimination and segregation. Branch Rickey, the former general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was seated besides Ellington. Rickey was honored for his efforts to integrate major league baseball. Jackie Robinson, the dinner fund's chairman and the first African-American to break baseball's color barrier, was also at the dais.
As the Duke Ellington Orchestra introduces the haunting melody to Stormy Weather in the 1933 film Bundles of Blue, the camera slowly moves to a draped-covered door. The band's vocalist Ivie Anderson appears from behind it. She is tall and slim. Her hair is short, and she is wearing a full-length white dress with short sleeves. The blackness of her skin is an effective counterpoint to the whiteness of her outfit. In a demure manner, she slowly walks to the front of the stage. Ivie glances at the orchestra momentarily and then turns to the camera. She begins to sing the evocative lines from the Koehler and Arlen tune Stormy Weather.
The final recording session was taped in Hollywood on Frank Sinatra's 52nd birthday, December 12, 1967. When Sinatra entered the studio, the Ellington Orchestra was already there. Duke was seated at his Steinway & Sons piano arranging his six-pack of Cokes, cigarettes, ashtray, tissues, and other sundries. Harry Carney, Russell Procope, Johnny Hodges, and Paul Gonsalves were readying their saxophones. Jimmy Hamilton was unpacking his clarinet. Sam Woodyard was checking his drums and cymbals. Lawrence Brown, the trombonist, and trumpeters Cootie Williams and Cat Anderson were inspecting their pieces and arranging their music stands.
As Duke Ellington wandered through the Wildenstein Gallery on East 64th Street in New York in March 1968, he marveled at the superb French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art exhibition titled "Degas's Racing World." On display were 130 paintings, drawings, and bronzes of horses, jockeys, and people at the race track. Highlighting the Wildenstein show were 90 art works of Edgar Degas. (Although famous for his paintings of ballet dancers, Degas had a long time interest in horses and horse racing. During his career, the famous artist made at least 45 paintings, 20 pastels, 250 drawings, and 17 sculptures of horses and riders.) Besides Degas's art, the exhibition also displayed 40 works by eleven other French artists such as Boudin, Gщricault, Forain, Toulouse-Latrec, Dufy, and Bonnard.

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German East Africa
Kaiser Wilhelm Facing Left, 2 Rupien, 1898.

The creation of a German colony in East Africa began with a plan submitted in 1884 to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Dr. Carl Peters, a German explorer and adventurer. Peters, a major promoter of extending an extension of Germany's Africa Empire to the East Coast, proposed that Germany acquire property on the mainland opposite the island of Zanzibar.

Despite Germany having seized South West Africa, the Cameroons and Togoland, Bismarck, for unknown reasons, dismissed Peters's proposal. Bismarck went on to announce that the State would not be responsible for the life of the private individual or for the safety of any property he might acquire on the African mainland opposite the island of Zanzibar.

Bismarck began to change his view when Peters returned to Berlin in 1885 with twelve treaties that recognized the explorer as acquiring a territory as large as Southern Germany. Soon afterwards, Peters was conferred an Imperial Charter upon his German East Africa Company.



King George VI
c.1938
Public Domain

George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George) was born on 14 December 1895 and never expected to be King. The future George VI was born in the reign of his great grandmother Queen Victoria. He was named Albert at birth after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort, and he was known as "Bertie" to his family and close friends. He suffered ill-health through much of his life and had a stammer.

George VI ascended the throne on 11 December 1936 upon the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII, who intended to marry Wallis Simpson, who was divorced from her first husband and divorcing her second. The coronation of George VI and his wife, Elizabeth [Bowes Lyon], as king and queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and as emperor and empress of India took place on Wednesday, 12 May 1937 at Westminster Abbey.

Southern Rhodesia, a landlocked self-governing British Crown Colony in southern Africa, was established in 1923 and dissolved in 1965. During Southern Rhodesia's existence as a Crown Colony, the English monarchs were King George V, Edward VIII, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II.

The coinage of Southern Rhodesia is extremely fascinating. While the obverse depicts outstanding images of the ruling English sovereign by famed designers and engravers, the reverse captures the imagery of Africa and displays historical depictions of Southern Rhodesia. The coins of Southern Rhodesia also offer coin collectors an opportunity to ascertain the fascinating story of the British Crown Colony in southern Africa.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes, was born in Edinburgh 160 years ago on 22 May 1859. To commemorate his birth, the Royal Mint has dedicated a new 50 Pence Coin to Sherlock Holmes. It is the first time that Conan Doyle's famed detective is commemorated on a UK coin.

The obverse of the coin features the fifth portrait of Queen Elizabeth II designed by Royal Mint engraver Jody Clark. The unique reverse design is by Stephen Raw and displays the recognizable silhouette of Holmes with his pipe and deerstalker. Highly distinctive and creative is the listing of Sherlock Holmes's famous cases.





The 1965 Churchill Crown

Sir Winston Churchill, the distinguished British statesman, army officer, orator and Nobel Prize winner, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War. From 1951 to 1955, Churchill would again serve as Prime Minister. After an extraordinary life, Churchill passed away in London on January 24, 1965 at the age of 90.

On March 16, 1965, only seven weeks following his death, Parliament voted and approved the Churchill Crown. In September, the Royal Mint released a limited issue Churchill circulating commemorative crown honoring and memorializing his life. The Crown was legal tender valued at 5 Shillings/25 Pence in the Pre-decimal coinage era.
Gibraltar is located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance to the Mediterranean. It is bordered to the north by Spain and has an area of 2.6 square miles. Gibraltar's landscape is dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar. At its foot is Gibraltar's only city, named Gibraltar, which is home to over 30,000 people, primarily Gibraltarians.

A visit to Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory, was an enjoyable time, particularly seeing up close what are commonly called the Barbary Apes that live on the upper Rock. Actually, the Barbary Apes are not apes but Macaques (Macaca sylvanus), which are tailless monkeys. Seeing the monkeys up close on a sunny autumn day was a magnificent experience. The handsome macaques were on the rocks overlooking the strait that separates Gibraltar from Morocco in Africa. The macaques were friendly and inquisitive.
The Weimar Republic is the name given to the German government between the end of the Imperial period (1918) and the beginning of Nazi Germany (1933). It was so named because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar from February 6 to August 11, 1919.

When the Weimar Republic came into being, my father Joseph, born in Kitzingen Germany, was seven years old. In 1936, three years after Adolph Hitler became German chancellor, Joseph now twenty-four years-of-age would have observed a change in the design of German coins by the Third Reich. This article reviews the design of the coinage of the Weimar Republic beginning in 1919 up to 1933, when the Nazi rise to power brought it and German parliamentary democracy to an end.
The fourth and final article on the coinage of Queen Victoria

During Queen Victoria's reign from June 20, 1837, to Jan. 22, 1901, four portraits appeared on the obverse of her coinage. The first three portraits were reviewed in the earlier articles of this series. These portraits are commonly referred to as the Young Head (1838-1887), Godless or Gothic (1847-1887), and Jubilee Coinage (1847-1887). This final article in the series covers the coinage in Victoria's final years as Queen from 1893 to 1901. The mature portrait of the elderly queen on the coinage during this period is referred to as the Old Head, or her "veiled" or "widowed" head.
The third article of four on the coinage of Queen Victoria

In accordance with the Royal Mint's practice, British coinage was changed in 1837 to portray the new queen. During Victoria's reign four main portraits appeared on the obverse of the queen's coinage. Previously, the first two articles in the series covered the first and second designs, which are commonly referred to as the Young Head (1838-1887) and Godless or Gothic (1847-1887).

This article discusses the third of Queen Victoria's coinage that marked the fiftieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, which was celebrated as The Golden Jubilee on June 20 and 21, 1887.
The second article of four on the coinage of Queen Victoria

During the years of Queen Victoria's reign from 1837 until her death in 1901, the bust of Victoria on England's coins changed as she aged. As discussed in the first article of this series, the initial portrait of Victoria appeared in 1838 shortly after her coronation at the age of 18. Her portrayal on silver and gold coinage was designed by William Wyon (1795-1852), who was the official chief engraver of the Royal Mint. The first depiction of Queen Victoria is known as the Young head portrait.

The Gothic Portrait
With the approaching tenth anniversary of Victoria's reign in 1847, Wyon designed and engraved a second portrait of the Queen. In designing the new portrait of Victoria, Wyon was influenced by the Gothic Revival that occurred in the mid 19th Century. The Gothic style venerated chivalry and romance of medieval times. The Gothic Revival had an effect on all portions of Victorian life from literature, domestic furnishings, architecture, and coinage.
The first article of four on the coinage of Queen Victoria

Alexandrina Victoria was born 24 May 1819. She was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, who was the fourth son of King George III. After both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820 within a week of each other, Victoria was raised by her German-born mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. At the age of 18, Victoria inherited the throne after her father's three elder brothers had all died, leaving no male surviving children.

Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India. Victoria’s reign of 63 years and 7 months is longer than any other British monarch; however, Queen Elizabeth II will become the longest ever reigning monarch in British history on 9 September 2015, when she will pass the record set by her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria.
Some years ago while at a coin show in Baltimore, an attractive piece of non-metal coinage caught my attention. The word Kitzingen appeared on the obverse, and the date on the reverse showed 1921. It immediately interested me as Kitzingen, a town in the German state of Bavaria, was the birthplace of my father born there in 1912. The dealer said the coin was German Notgeld. The term was unknown to me. I learned that in Germany after World War I, the German Central Bank had a shortage of small change for release in silver and nickel. In an effort to address the shortage, the Government used Notgeld or "emergency money" or "necessity money." Notgeld was not legal tender but rather a mutually-accepted means of payment. It was mainly issued in the form of paper banknotes. Occasionally, other diverse forms of Notgeld were used, such as leather, silk, linen, stamps, aluminum foil, coal, aluminum foil, coal, stoneware, and porcelain.
On June 2, 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at a coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey in London. In front of more than 8,000 guests, including prime ministers and heads of state from around the Commonwealth, Elizabeth took the Coronation Oath. After being handed the four symbols of authority – the orb, the scepter, the sword of mercy, and the ring of sapphire and rubies – the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fischer, placed St. Edward's Crown on her head to complete the ceremony. A shout of "God save the Queen" was heard and gun salutes were fired as crowds cheered. In 1953 Great Britain struck an attractive crown coin in copper-nickel with a denomination of five schillings to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
1887 was a momentous year in Great Britain, for it was the 50th celebration of the accession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria to the Throne of England. One of the events that took place to celebrate the Jubilee was the introduction of new gold and silver coinage, which included the first change in the portrait of Victoria on the obverse of British coins since 1837. The Jubilee coinage also entered into circulation a new coin for the first and last time in British history: a Double Florin (4 Shillings)

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Tony Lazzeri was one of the great New York Yankees. He was a clutch ballplayer who kept his nerve on the field and was credited with helping make Frank Crosetti and Joe DiMaggio outstanding players. What was not well-known about Lazzeri was he suffered from epilepsy.
Compassion, Thy Name is Anna
I have been writing a little book, its special aim being to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses. From Anna Sewell's Diary.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Rita in Calcasieu Parish in southwest Louisiana, the pilot aboard the American Humane Association (AHA) helicopter saw two trapped horses standing in water in a roofless barn. The pilot immediately placed an emergency rescue call to the AHA field station at Lake Charles. Allan Schwartz, co-founder of Days End Farm Horse Rescue in Lisbon, Maryland, and other volunteers responded without delay.

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Mary Margaret Ruth Moberly


Mary Margaret Ruth was one of eight children born to George Herman Ruth and Kate Schamberger. Only she and her brother, George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr., who was 5 1/2 years older, survived to adulthood. Everyone knew her as "Mamie", the name she would say, her brother George would use to annoy her.

Mary Margaret Ruth was born August 2, 1900 in Baltimore, MD. In 1917, she married Wilbur Marion Moberly, a clothing cutter, who was born on January 12, 1887 also in Baltimore. They had one child, a daughter named Florence born April 10, 1919.

On July 9, 1914, nineteen-year-old Babe Ruth, Ernie Shore and Ben Egan were sold by the minor league Baltimore Orioles of the International League to the Boston Red Sox. On July 10, Ruth, Shore and Eagan took an overnight train to Boston. After arriving at Back Bay Station on July 11 at 10:00 a.m., Ruth and Shore crossed Dartmouth Street and ordered a breakfast of ham and eggs at Landers Coffee Shop. Ruth was served by a sixteen-year-old dark haired waitress named Mary Ellen "Helen" Woodford. The Babe and Helen would marry in the fall.



Ruth and Helen Woodford married at
St. Paul's Catholic Church in Ellicott City in 1914

On January 6, 1920, Boston baseball fans read the unimaginable. The Boston Globe reported that Babe Ruth had been sold to the New York Yankees. The Boston Globe headline read:

Red Sox sell Babe Ruth for $100,000 cash
Owner calls one man team a failure;
Ruth Says he'll only play in Boston.
By James C. O'Leary
GLOBE STAFF

The Boston Globe article began: "'Babe' Ruth, home-run hitter extraordinary of the Red Sox, has been sold to the New York American League club for a cash price of probably $100,000 and possibly more. Pres [Harry] Frazee in announcing the sale at Red Sox headquarters in the Carney Building late yesterday afternoon declined to state the amount."




Following the 1934 World Series, a group of Major League baseball stars led by Babe Ruth travelled from the United States for a good-will tour of the Orient with visits in Honolulu, Japan, Shanghai, and Manila. The trip to Japan by the Americans was originated by Matsutaro Shoriki who owned the Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper. Shoriki wanted to see just how popular and successful baseball could be with the Japanese population, and he organized the exhibition with professional American baseball players.

Prior to Shoriki's idea, other teams from the United States had come to Japan. There were tours by non-professional American 'all-star' teams in 1908, 1913, 1920, 1922 and 1931. The American teams played Japanese amateur or college baseball clubs. John D. Shibe, vice president of the Philadelphia Athletics, organized the 1934 tour to the Orient. The selection of the team's manager, American League baseball stars and support staff for the team were Shibe's immediate charge.



Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth
St. Petersburg, Florida, 1935

The public learned of the news from The New York Times on February 26, 1935. Under the headline Ruth Gets His Wish, James P. Dawson informed readers that Babe Ruth had terminated his fifteen-year contract with the Yankees to become an executive of the Boston Braves, as well as assistant manager and active player.

The deal to bring Ruth from the American League to the National League was sealed with Judge Emil Fuchs, president of the Boston club. A three-year contract had been agreed upon. Colonel Jacob Ruppert, owner of the Yankees, gave Ruth his unconditional release. Ruppert was also instrumental in persuading American League owners to waive the Babe, which made his transfer possible to the National League.



Babe Ruth and George Bush

President George H.W. Bush retained his old Yale baseball glove in an Oval Office desk drawer during his four years in the White House. As a left-handed first baseman for the Eli's Bulldogs from 1946 to 1948, Bush, known as "Poppy" during his playing days, participated in the first two College World Series. As varsity Captain of the Yale baseball team in New Haven, Connecticut, one of Bush's most memorable experiences occurred on June 5, 1948, when he received a gift from Babe Ruth on behalf of the Yale Library.

Shortstop Mark Anthony Koenig batted second on Opening Day for the 1927 New York Yankees. Earle Combs batted in front of Koenig, and Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri batted behind him. The lineup for the 1927 Yankees was given the nickname Murderers Row, and the team went down in baseball history as one of the greatest of all time. In 1984, Koenig was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times. In a wide ranging interview, he shared a number of anecdotes about the Babe, arguably the most famous ballplayer to ever play the game. Koenig's accounts are a valuable addition to the story of Babe Ruth.

It was written that Mark Koenig was a singles hitter on a team of power. As a second-year shortstop in 1926, he became friends with Ruth, and both men drank, played cards, and spent time together. Koenig and Ruth dressed next to each other in the locker room, and slept across from each other on the team train. However, Yankees Manager Miller Huggins moved Koenig to another berth following an altercation between the two men.

With the 1964 season over, the first-year manager of the Baltimore Orioles, Hank Bauer went home to Prairie Village, Kansas. In November, Bauer received a phone call and was told that he had been named American League Manager of the Year for 1964 by a landslide in the annual Associated Press poll.

The Baltimore Sun reported Bauer's reaction: "I thought I was still dreaming when they told me I won it," exclaimed Bauer, who in his debut as manager of the Orioles piloted the club to an exciting third place finish, only two games behind the winner. Bauer went on to say, "It was some surprise," he said. "I figured after we finished third, it would be between the two guys who finished ahead of us – Yogi [Berra of the Yankees] and Al [Lopez, White Sox manager.]"


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Jonathan Dudley was eight years old in the Spring term of 1949 at the pre-prep school he attended in London. One day, young Dudley, who shared a desk with a boy named Winston Churchill, was told by his schoolmate that his grandmother wanted him to bring a "little friend" with him for his summer stay at Kent. Winston asked Jonathan if he would be that friend. Jonathan said he would. Afterwards, he learned from his family that Winston's grandfather was the famous statesman and war leader, Winston Churchill.

In my office hangs a number of photographs of Winston Churchill with horses. My favorite is Churchill with a horse named Colonist II, a big grey race horse that he bought in 1949. Churchill and Colonist II captured the heart of the public and led me to write of their exploits together. With an admiration for Churchill and a fondness for horses, it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to the release of Brough Scott's, Churchill at the Gallop. Scott, a well-known English jockey, broadcaster, journalist and author, chronicles Churchill's lifetime experiences with horses from his youth, serving in the military, and his intervening and senior years; a period stemming from Churchill's early recollections in Ireland in 1879 to his final years 1952-65.

As the former editor of the Aviation & Military Video Club, Mike Lepine has been instrumental in bringing much rare archival film footage to the public for the first time. As an author, he has also written over thirty books. Here he considers Winston Churchill's relationship with his generals during World War II. Accompanying the text is a fascinating array of color and black and white photographs.


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Larry

In February 2011, the BBC reported Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed a cat to 10 Downing Street in an effort to deal with its mice problem. The cat, a four-year old brown-and-white Taby named Larry, came from London's Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, an animal rescue center. It was established in Holloway, London in 1860 and moved to Battersea in 1871. The charity has cared for more than 3.1 million dogs and cats over its history.

In a statement Prime Minister Cameron said: "I'm delighted to welcome Larry to his new home. He came highly recommended to me by Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, who did a fantastic job looking after him. I'm sure he will be a great addition to Downing Street and will charm our many visitors." However, contrary to his reputation as being gentle, Larry scratched reporters from ITV News and Sky News that tried to hold him as part of their reports.

"If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man,
but it would deteriorate the cat."
Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (30 November 1835 - 21 April 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer. Mark Twain was a great cat lover and owned up to 19 at one time, reported Kat Eschner in Smithsonian Magazine. His cats all bore imaginative titles including: Apollinaris, Beelzebub, Blatherskite, Buffalo Bill, Satan, Sin, Sour Mash, Tammany, Zoroaster, Soapy Sal and Pestilence.

In the early autumn of 1904, Mark Twain rented a house in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue, corner of Ninth Street. At the time, his daughter Clara, the second of three daughters born to him and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens, was seriously ill and taken to a sanatorium for a year. Her health problems were due to the strain of her mother's long illness and the shock of her death that year. While at the sanatorium, she had a black cat that she was forced to give her father. The cat's name was Bambino.



Mark Twain and kitten

Cats were part of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill's (WSC) life both at his official and private residences. There would be a succession of cats. One of WSC's most famous cats during the war years was a big, grey feline named Nelson. During a dinner at Chequers, the American war correspondent, Quentin Reynolds, recalled Churchill remarking: "Nelson is the bravest cat I ever knew. I once saw him chase a huge dog out of the Admiralty. I decided to adopt him and name him after our great Admiral Horatio Nelson."

"It was a cozy family dinner, and Churchill scarcely mentioned the war," wrote Reynolds. "Our first course was smoked salmon and twice, when Mrs. Churchill was not looking, the Prime Minister sneaked pieces of salmon to Nelson."



Neville, A 'Sponsor Cat' (Sunshine Cat Rescue)