Over the past few days, much of the Northern Hemisphere has been treated to a Planetary Parade. In case you live in the Southern Hemisphere or....
The Breezer -the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from me, Steve Winduss, at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more". - 2nd March 2025.
Happy Sunday! Over the past few days, much of the Northern Hemisphere has been treated to a Planetary Parade. In case you live in the Southern Hemisphere or have been hiding under a rock in the Northern Hemisphere since last week, this astronomical event comprises the seven planets all within viewat the sametime, at least for a short period each night. The naked eye can see Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter, while Saturn is a bit too close to the sun for easy viewing. Spotting Neptune and Uranus requires a telescope. Nonetheless, all seven planets are there (not forgetting Earth itself as the eighth planet), affording us a few moments each evening to contemplate the vastness of space and our minuscule presence within it. Thought-provoking. Of course, in the UK, hopes are usually dashedon such occasions. You eagerly step outside to be greeted by a blanket of thick cloud obscuring the view. Not this week, though. We have had three clear, crisp evenings to take in the wonderful sight. I hope you had a chance to do the same, wherever you are. The next Planetary Parade will appear in 2040. I will be 75 years old.
Johann Bayer, a German lawyer and astronomer, created the first modern map of the entire celestial sphere in 1603. He based his work, Uranometria, on fellow astronomer Tycho Brahe’s observations in the latter part of the 16th century. Bayer mapped and catalogued stars and constellations, including 12 southern constellations not previously seen by European astronomers. He created the Bayer system, a method of designating stars according to their brightness.
Johann Bayer’s Uranometria, 1603.
The brightest star in a constellation was prefixed ‘alpha’, second brightest ‘beta’ and so on. The second part of the name took the possessive form of its parent constellation. So, for instance, Betelgeuse, that bright orange star in the top left hand corner of the constellation Orion, is called Alpha Orionis. Similarly, Alpha Tauri is the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus. In some cases, the stars are named according to their position within a constellation, typically when relative brightness is hard to specify. Strictly speaking, Betelgeuse is the second brightest star in Orion, but is named Alpha Orionis because it appears ahead of the brightest star, Rigel, each night. In the Great Bear (or Ursa Major or Big Dipper) constellation, the stars are named in sequence rather than by brightness. Yes, I realise this starts to sound a bit random. However, a few centuries later, astronomers still use Bayer’s designation system so who are we to argue? Johann Bayer died 400 years ago this Friday, 7 March 1625. The Moon crater Bayer is named in his honour.
On This Day
8th March 1930
Edward Terry Sanford was born in 1865 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the eldest of six children. He attended university at the age of 14 and earned two degrees by the time he reached 18 years old. Six years later, Sanford had stockpiled a third degree, a Master of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School. Edward began practising law in 1890, soon to gravitate towards a career in public service. By 1906, he had been appointed Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, for the specific purpose of prosecuting high-profile criminals.
Edward Terry Sanford, 1923.
One such high-profile case was United States of America v. John F. Shipp et al, 1906-09. This was the only criminal trial ever conducted by the US Supreme Court, and Edward Sanford was lead prosecutor. Ed Johnson, an African American, had been found guilty of the rape of a white woman in Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee. He was sentenced to death. Little to no evidence had been produced to support the verdict. Racial tension was extreme across the United States at this time, but concentrated in the South. Segregation was widespread and mob violence against African Americans was commonplace. Between the late 1870s and 1960s, Jim Crow laws - a system of legalised segregation - were enforced. During that time, thousands of African Americans were lynched.
Out of Curiosity… Charles Lynch was a Virginia plantation owner, politician, civilian militia leader and judge during the American Revolutionary War (or as we Brits like to say, The American War of Independence) in the 1780s. Lynch gained notoriety by presiding over ad hoc trials of British Loyalists and administering punishments such as floggings and forced military service against their own. The practice became known as Lynch Law, or lynching. Lynching took on a darker form during the Jim Crow period, that of racial terrorism. White supremacist mobs murdered African Americans without trial. The acts were often public spectacles involving torture, burning or hanging. I should also add that a weaker case supports a similar story for a certain Captain William Lynch of Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
Johnson’s legal team appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that his constitutional rights had been violated. They argued that black individuals were excluded from the grand jury and that Johnson had been denied effective counsel due to mob threats towards his original attorney. The Supreme Court issued a stay of execution for Johnson while it reviewed the evidence. The Court ordered Sheriff Joseph F. Shipp of Hamilton County to protect Johnson throughout this period. However, while the Court review was in progress, a mob stormed the Hamilton County jail in Chattanooga to seize and lynch Johnson. He was hanged from the Walnut Street Bridge, less than half a mile from the jail.
Supreme Court of the United States, Washington D.C.
In response, the Supreme Court initiated contempt proceedings against Shipp et al for failing to protect Johnson. It transpired that not only had the jail been deliberately left unguarded, but that some of the deputies had even taken part in the lynching. Closing arguments were presented 116 years ago this week, with the final Court ruling delivered in May 1909. Sheriff Shipp and five others were found guilty of criminal contempt. Although sentenced to 90 days in prison for contempt, the six were never tried for the actual murder of Ed Johnson. When Sheriff Shipp returned to Chattanooga, he was greeted as a hero in some quarters.
Eight years before Edward Sanford was born, Louise Taft gave birth to a son, William, in Cincinnati, Ohio. William Howard Taft devoured law in much the same way as Sandford, graduating from Yale University in 1878 and securing a Law degree from Cincinnati Law School in 1880. By the time Edward Sanford was appointed Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, Taft had served as a judge on the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, had been sent overseas to become the first civilian Governor of the Philippines and was serving as Secretary of War under President Theodore Roosevelt. Although Taft and Sanford had met a few years earlier, their relationship grew stronger after Taft had served his one term as President of the United States (1909-1913). Taft had been appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1921. He was the only person to have served in that role and held the office of President of the United States. Sanford had served as a United States District Court Judge since 1908.
Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Edward Terry Sanford, 1923.
In January 1923, William Howard Taft advocated for Sanford to be appointed to the Supreme Court. President Warren Harding nominated Sanford and the Senate confirmed his appointment in February. The two men developed a professional bond based on mutual respect and a shared conservative outlook. They shared philosophies and debated the law. They were part of the Court’s conservative ‘inner club’. Sanford considered Taft a friend and mentor. Their lives were inextricably entwined.
Ninety-five years ago this coming Saturday, 8 March 1930, Edward Terry Sanford left home for a routine tooth extraction. He was in good health. During his dental treatment, Sanford felt unwell and was transported home to rest. At midday, he died from uremic poisoning. He was 64 years old. Taft had been in declining health for some time. He was suffering from heart disease and high blood pressure among other complications. He had retired from his position as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a month earlier as a result of these health issues. Within six hours of Sanford’s death and on the same day, 8 March 1930, William Howard Taft passed away.
Where are they now?
Francis Baring was born in Exeter, England in 1740. He was the son of a German Lutheran pastor who emigrated to England in 1717. Francis proved himself to be razor sharp with numbers and gravitated to London as a trading apprentice. Soon after, he set up a new branch of the family wool manufacturing business. This addition evolved into a separate trading entity. John and Francis Baring & Co. was established in 1762 and quickly gained a robust reputation as a financier of international trade and infrastructure ventures. In 1803, Barings played a leading role in financing the United States’ purchase of a significant tract of land from Napoleon Boneparte. Napoleon’s depleted war chest needed topping up to continue his campaigns in the pan-European Napoleonic Wars. He was forced to sell assets.
Out of curiosity… The United States' acquisition of land from France in 1803 was called the Louisiana Purchase, doubling its size in one transaction. The area extended along the Mississippi basin, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. It was sandwiched between the Appalachian Mountains to the East and the Rocky Mountains in the West. The area was known as Louisiana, named in honour of Louis XIV of France, in 1682. The Louisiana Purchase covered the following states: Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota (west of Mississippi River), North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Montana, Colorado (east), New Mexico (part), Texas (part) and Louisiana (part).
By 1815, Baring Brothers & Co. was referred to as the sixth great European power. Its financial clout had supported the British through the Napoleonic Wars and helped to stabilise Europe following Napoleon’s defeat, arranging indemnity loans for France. Barings remained private for the next 180 years and by 1995 its net worth was approximately £700m ($900m). Although this is a modest valuation compared to the major banks of the time, £1.8 billion in today’s money was a great success story for a private, and Britain’s oldest, merchant banker.
Baring Brothers & Co., 1920s: John Baring, second Lord Revelstoke; Cecil Baring, later third Lord Revelstoke; Gaspard Farrer and Alfred Mildmay.
Baring Brothers was part of British financial heritage, entwined with the aristocracy, managing business for members of the Royal Family. It was a rock, a pillar of the British Empire. It was a timeless institution that would endure forever. However… …the bank hadn’t accounted for the appearance of a working-class chap from Watford, Hertfordshire, brought up on a council estate and son of a self-employed plasterer. Nick Leeson had achieved modest results at school, so he skipped University and started his career as a clerk with Coutts Bank in London. In 1989, Leeson moved to Baring Brothers, worked hard and performed well. He was rewarded with a transfer to Singapore in 1992 to manage the bank’s new Futures and Options division. The 28-year-old Leeson would oversee the bank’s front-end trading operation and its back-end administration. This was an unusual combination, not so much ‘gamekeeper-turned-poacher’, but gamekeeper and poacher. Late in 1994, Leeson started betting on the performance of the Japanese Nikkei 225 index. The early results were very promising. However, in early 1995, the losses started to accumulate. “No problem”, thought Leeson, who used his back-office control to temporarily hide the losses in the infamous 88888 account.
You might remember at school making small wagers with your friends; “Was Miss Hubbersty pregnant” or, “Would Sarah Jane May agree to a date with so-and-so”? If you lost the bet, you might offer, “Double-or-quits?” By doubling the size of the previous bet, and by winning the next bet, you will have reverted to making a profit. If you lost that bet, you could double-or-quits again. It was fail safe.
Heads or tails?
Perhaps not. If your original bet had been £1, by the tenth consecutive double-or-quits you could be down over £1,000. Four more and you’re in for a cool £15,000. You see how it works.
Well, that was Nick Leeson’s flawed strategy. By hiding losses from unauthorised trades, he was able to repeatedly play double-or-quits. Unfortunately for Leeson, in January 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Japan caused the Nikkei 225 index to crash.
Out of Curiosity… During the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 I recall a stockbroker friend of mine quipping:
Don’t forget that the value of your stocks can fall as well as plummet.
By February 1995, the 88888 account was hiding cumulative losses exceeding £825 million ($1.3 billion). Having played one too many double-or-quits, Nick Leeson and his wife vanished on the night of the 23 February. Leeson left a rather understated note on his desk which read, “I’m sorry”. I suppose he could have added, “Last one out turn the lights off.” The following day an investigation started, uncovering the 88888 account… and the losses. Barings Bank, friend to the great and even greater for 233 years, collapsed overnight.
Nick Leeson wrote his story Rogue Trader while in a Frankfurt prison awaiting extradition to Singapore, 1995.
Thirty years ago today, 2 March 1995, Nick Lesson was arrested at Frankfurt Airport on charges of deception and fraud. Later that month, the remnants of Barings Bank was bought for £1 by the Dutch bank, ING Group. Nick Leeson served four of his six-and-a-half year sentence in Changi Prison, Singapore. Today, Nick Leeson lives in Galway, Ireland and is a keynote and after-dinner speaker. He primarily talks about personal resilience and…… .......risk management.
Question of the Week
The audience and critics who attended the Opéra-Comique in Paris 150 years ago tomorrow, 3 March 1875, were in for a shock. The opera ‘Carmen’ was making its world première. Traditional opera to that point had portrayed larger-than-life aristocrats and nobility. The stories were of love, heroism and sacrifice. There was a clear divide between the good and the bad guys, between right and wrong. Carmen broke the mould. It portrayed the lives of ordinary folk; labourers, cigarette factory workers, soldiers, rogues and vagabonds. Idealism was replaced by realism. The storyline was gritty, the lead characters morally dubious.
Original poster for the première of Carmen, Opera-Comique, Paris, 1875.
As such, the reviews were less than complimentary and the audience response was cold. However, while French audiences found the opera a little vulgar, Carmen proved to be very popular when it expanded to Austria, Belgium, England, Spain and the United States. Today, Carmen is one of the most commonly performed operas across the world and has been adapted into over 80 films. Who composed Carmen?
And Finally…
This Tuesday marks the 160th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s second-term inauguration, 4 March 1865. I learned two interesting facts about the occasion this week. Firstly, it seems that Andrew Johnson embarrassed President Lincoln during Johnson’s inaugural speech as vice president. Known to like a tipple, Johnson drank a little too heavily at a party in his honour the night before. Feeling under the weather the following morning, Johnson tried a hair of the dog to cure his hangover. Unfortunately, the top-up whiskey only made him feel worse. Johnson duly delivered his speech delightfully inebriated. He rambled and slurred for 20 minutes. It was all very embarrassing, not least for President Abraham Lincoln. Despite this, Andrew Johnson still became US President one month later when President Lincoln was assassinated.
Out of Curiosity… In 1863, the American stage actor John Wilkes Booth played the part of villain Raphael Duchatlet in the play The Marble Heart. The play was being staged at Ford’s Theatre, Washington, D.C. One evening, Booth performed in the presence of President Lincoln. Two years later, John Wilkes Booth would play the real life villain when he assassinated Abraham Lincoln in the same theatre.
The second area of interest relating to Lincoln’s 2nd inauguration day was an apparent revelation in a photograph of Abraham Lincoln while delivering his speech. Frederick Hill Meserve was a historian and collector of photographs, particularly around the time of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and the American Civil War. In fact, by his death in 1962, Meserve had amassed and studied over 200,000 photographs of the era. He had skin in the game. In 1956, he had published a photograph of the 1865 inauguration in Life Magazine. In the magazine, he identified a man in the crowd, not far from Lincoln. It was John Wilkes Booth.
Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd term inauguration speech, 1865. John Wilkes Booth?
Historians remain sceptical that Meserve was correct. Have you seen this photo before? If so, do you think that John Wilkes Booth is correctly identified where I have highlighted above? Or have I been completely duped? I would love to hear from you.
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Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.
Question of the week… Answer
George Bizet composed the opera Carmen between 1873-74. The French writer and historian Prosper Mérimée wrote the story of Carmen thirty years earlier in 1845.
ATTRIBUTIONS Johann Bayer’s Uranometria, 1603: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Edward Terry Sanford, 1923: Harris & Ewing, Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Supreme Court of the United States, Washington D.C. : Philosophicalswag, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Edward Terry Sanford, 1923: Harris & Ewing, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Baring Brothers & Co., 1920s: John Baring, second Lord Revelstoke; Cecil Baring, later third Lord Revelstoke; Gaspard Farrer and Alfred Mildmay: Ambrose McEvoy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Nick Leeson wrote his story Rogue Trader while in a Frankfurt prison awaiting extradition to Singapore, 1995. Heads or tails? Ipipipourax, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Original poster for the premiere of Carmen, Opera-Comique, Paris, 1875: Prudent-Louis Leray (1820-1879); Restored by Adam Cuerden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd term inauguration speech, 1865: Alexander Gardner, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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