After nightfall on 18 April 1825, Lavalleja led the now-revered ‘Landing of the Thirty-Three’. They crossed the Uruguay River in two small boats, carrying a blue, white and red horizontal-striped flag emblazoned with the words ‘Libertad o Muerte’ - Liberty or Death.
The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from 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".24th August 2025.
Happy Sunday! Today marks the anniversary of one of the most dramatic days in recent world history. On 24 August 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This led to his resignation as President of the Soviet Union and subsequent collapse of the USSR before the end of the year.
On the same day, Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union.
It was a day of euphoric celebration in Ukraine, marking the end of 70 years of communist rule that began after Lenin and his Bolsheviks took control in the aftermath of 1917, ultimately incorporating Ukraine into the USSR in 1922.
The authorities knew that holding on to their sovereignty would need constant vigilance.
After all, the new Ukraine was caught between the wounded bear of Russia to the east and an ambitious, expanding European project to the west.
Ukraine was now a rose between two thorns. It was only a matter of time before someone decided it needed picking.
Thirty-four years later, Ukraine’s sovereignty hangs by a thread.
One hundred and sixty-six years earlier, another territory sandwiched between two superpowers was brewing its own revolution. But this revolution was different; it would forge an entirely new, independent nation.
This is the story of the birth of Uruguay. Juan Antonio Lavalleja was born in 1784 in Minas, a small settlement in the heart of what the Spanish called ‘The Banda Oriental’ - literally the ‘Eastern Shore’ of the Uruguay River.
The Uruguay River runs from southern Brazil, flowing down into the Rio de la Plata estuary between Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
Map of South America in 1821. Banda Oriental is highlighted.
Banda Oriental was a tract of land roughly the size of England and Wales rolled into one or, say, the US state of Missouri. This was cattle country. The ‘gauchos’ who herded the cattle worked hard to the rhythms of the seasons and answered to no one. They were a tough breed.
But this was no wasteland. It was prime real estate. Montivideo was the Banda Oriental’s jewel in the crown, its principal port. It controlled access from the Uruguay River out to the Southern Atlantic.
The Spanish claimed the region following the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, but it wasn’t fully colonised until 1726.
Over the decades that followed colonisation, Banda Oriental had developed into a wonderfully multicultural stew. Spanish colonists, Portuguese settlers, runaway slaves and indigenous people all rubbed shoulders in what might generously be called a precarious coexistence.
This was Juan Antonio Lavalleja’s world: ranches, cattle, horses, wide open spaces. Juan Antonio was in the saddle before he could walk, and had mastered the lasso before he learned to hold a pen.
A gaucho ropes a bull, by Juan Ravenet (1766-c.1821).
However, Banda Oriental was also frontier country. Although the territory was part of the Spanish Empire, it sat on the fault line between the Spanish and Portuguese, with the latter continuously picking away at its edges.
By the time Lavalleja was 21 in 1805, Europe was tearing itself apart. Napoleon was rampaging across the continent. Most significantly for Juan Antonio, the Spanish and Portuguese empires were under stress.
The whiff of revolution was in the air across South America.
Lavalleja kept an eye on developments with a keen interest. He wasn’t a revolutionary at heart, but, like most ‘Orientales’, he had never taken kindly to rule by distant kingdoms.
When Napoleon unceremoniously ousted the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies in 1808, their South American colonies were vulnerable.
Revolution swept across South America as Venezuela’s ‘El Libertador’, Simón Bolívar, seized independence for Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela with ruthless determination.
By 1811, as the revolution spread east, Juan Antonio threw his hand in with José Gervasio Artigas, the legendary gaucho freedom fighter with a magnificent beard and an uncompromising attitude to foreigners.
For the next five years, Juan Antonio developed the art of guerrilla warfare the hard way… in action. He would take part in lightning raids and ambushes. He learned when to strike and when to retreat.
Most important of all, Lavalleja learned the power of inspiring loyalty, how to rally believers into an unstoppable force.
Oil canvas of Juan Antonio Lavalleja, by Jean Phillippe Goulu (1786-1853).
The first blow for independence came in 1816 when the Portuguese invaded Banda Oriental with overwhelming force. By 1821, after four years of heroic defence, the Artigas gauchos’ number was up. The ‘Cisplatine Province’ (Banda Oriental) was incorporated into the Portuguese Kingdom of Brazil.
Artigas, Lavalleja and the revolutionaries were forced into exile. Artigas fled to Paraguay and would never return.
Lavalleja had other ideas.
He crossed the river to Buenos Aires, where the new independent state of Argentina offered sanctuary from the Portuguese.
Lavalleja then spent the next three years learning, planning, organising.
Throughout 1823-25, he built a covert network of sympathisers across Buenos Aires who themselves travelled throughout Argentina to rally more supporters.
Their scheming wasn’t quite as covert as they thought. The Argentine authorities were tracking the network but happy to turn a blind eye. After all, a rogue invasion of Brazil with built-in deniability suited them down to the ground.
By April 1825, Peru, Chile and Panama were now independent states. In Buenos Aires, Lavalleja’s collection of exiles, sympathisers and malcontents had gathered.
The ‘Thirty-Three Orientals’ (Treinta y Tres Orientales) were ready.
After nightfall on 18 April 1825, Lavalleja led the now-revered ‘Landing of the Thirty-Three’. They crossed the Uruguay River in two small boats, carrying a blue, white and red horizontal-striped flag emblazoned with the words ‘Libertad o Muerte’ - Liberty or Death.
Flag of the Thirty-Three Orientals, photographic reproduction of original.
Out of Curiosity Argentina gets its name from the Latin ‘argentum’ - silver - after early explorers heard tantalising tales of the Río de la Plata, the “River of Silver.” These 16th-century tales of silver-rich mountains proved to be more legend than reality, but the name stuck.
When Bonnie Prince Charles had attempted to reclaim the British crown in 1745, he landed on Eriskay Island in Scotland with seven men, armed only with a plan to whip up support on a march south to confront the monarchy. Lavalleja’s plan was a bit more calculating; his thirty-three men were hardened fighters with an intimate knowledge of the terrain. Above all, they knew that strong local support was waiting for them. They just needed to light the fuse. The Thirty-Three landed at Playa de la Agraciada. Within days, their force had expanded into hundreds. The hundreds became thousands. Lavalleja employed those hard-learned tactics; one by one, they picked off garrison after garrison. Lightning raids, ambush, strike and retreat. This guerrilla warfare wasn’t in the Brazilian’s playbook. Town after town fell until the ultimate target came into sight - Montevideo.
The oath of the Thirty-three Orientales, Juan Manuel Blanes (1830-1901).
In August 1825, representatives from across Banda Oriental gathered in Florida, not the one with the alligators, but a small town 50 miles north of Montevideo. The outcome of the meeting would send shockwaves from Montevideo to Rio de Janeiro. On that day, 200 years ago tomorrow, 25 August 1825, Juan Francisco Larrobla, Roman Catholic priest and President of the newly formed assembly, declared:
The Hall of Representatives declares null, void, dissolved and of no value forever, all acts of incorporation, recognitions, acclamations and oaths torn from the peoples of the Oriental Province, by the violence of force united with the perfidy of the intrusive powers of Portugal and Brazil that have tyrannized, trampled and usurped their inalienable rights, and subjected them to the yoke of absolute despotism from 1817 to 1825.
Powerful words. The Banda Oriental had declared itself independent from Brazil, invoking its right to self-determination and freedom from foreign rule.
The declaration had delivered a master stroke; By implying a future desire to join with Argentina, they had manufactured a protective cloak around Banda Oriental in the war that would undoubtedly follow. Sure enough, three years of war between Argentina and Brazil ensued, the ‘Cisplatine War of 1825-28’. It was a messy war; neither side could achieve dominance as civilian life came to a standstill.
The death of Colonel Brandsen at the Battle of Ituzaingó, during the Cisplatine War of 1825-28. Painting by Augusto Ballerini (1857-1897).
The stalemate was broken by Lord John Ponsonby, envoy of the British Foreign Office. British trade routes were being disrupted, and both Brazil and Argentina were defaulting on their debts to British banks. In other words, the Brits had skin in the game. Ponsonby mediated a solution on 27 August 1828, when the Treaty of Montevideo was signed. At British insistence, Banda Oriental would provide a buffer between the two former colonial territories. Banda Oriental had become the sovereign nation of Uruguay. Argentina and Brazil reluctantly accepted. Lavalleja and the citizens of Banda Oriental licked their lips.
Unfortunately, Lavalleja’s story didn’t have the requisite fairytale ending. Juan Antonio ran for President in 1830 and lost to his rival, Fructuoso Rivera. He then failed to bring down Rivera by force. Twice more he ran. Twice more he failed. Twice more he rebelled. The ensuing years brought civil war until an embittered Lavalleja made peace with Rivera in 1851. He then lived in comparative obscurity for a couple of years until his death in 1853. Ironically, Lavalleja had spent more time fighting his fellow Uruguayans than he ever did fighting the Brazilians. The inscription on Lavalleja’s monument reads:
He served his country 43 years… and he died poor.
Monumento a Lavalleja, Montevideo.
So it turns out that, with a bit of luck and a pinch of political chicanery, small territories can achieve independence against the odds. Uruguay has thrived ever since. Not only has it become one of South America’s most stable democracies but it was the first South American country to introduce a welfare state, women’s suffrage, divorce laws and many other social policies. Quite an achievement that started with thirty-three men in a boat. (Oh alright then - two boats.)
Dates with History
Today…
Matthew Webb was born in 1848 in the small English market town of Dawley, Shropshire. From a young age, the call of the sea proved irresistible. At twelve years old, Matthew ran away from home to sign up as a ship’s apprentice in the Mercantile Marine, the forerunner of the Merchant Navy. Webb learned to swim in the ship’s water tanks during long voyages. Most seamen couldn’t swim, believing that if their ship went down, swimming would only prolong the agony. In 1874, during a transatlantic crossing, Webb witnessed a passenger fall overboard. Without hesitation, he dived into the churning Atlantic to attempt a rescue. The passenger tragically drowned before Webb could reach him, but his heroic effort earned him a medal from the Royal Humane Society. The incident sparked Webb’s imagination. If he could survive those terrifying minutes in the open ocean, what else might be possible? The English Channel had tantalised swimmers for decades. This 21-mile stretch of water between Dover and Calais represented the ultimate test of human endurance against the elements. Tides raced through faster than most people can swim, and the shipping lanes were among the busiest in the world. Several swimmers had already died attempting the crossing. The Channel was becoming an aquatic graveyard. Despite all this, Captain Matthew Webb was going to swim the English Channel. One hundred and fifty years ago today, 24 August 1875, two weeks after his first attempt ended in failure, Webb was again standing on the beach at Dover, stripped down to his red silk swimming costume and lacquered in porpoise oil. It was four minutes to midnight. Webb started walking towards the grey waters and kept walking as his feet and ankles absorbed the first 15°C shock of the Channel. He leaned into the shallow waves and started swimming towards France, his support boat close by. Webb soon found his rhythm, a steady breaststroke which he could sustain for hours. Twenty-one hours and 45 minutes later, Webb hauled himself onto the beach at Calais. He had survived jellyfish stings, muscle cramps and the hypothermic sea on nothing but beef tea, a few tots of brandy and a generous helping of sheer bloody-mindedness. Matthew Webb had done it. The first person to swim the English Channel unassisted. The Captain was an instant Victorian celebrity. In modern parlance… he went viral. Unfortunately, the pressure of fame would lead to Webb’s demise. Having attempted ever-riskier feats of endurance, he perished while attempting to swim across the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls. In July 1883, Captain Matthew Webb had launched into the raging waters, never to be seen alive again. His body was recovered four days later. He was 35 years old.
The drowning of Captain Matthew Webb, as reported in Philadelphia and New York, 25 July 1883 (publication unknown).
Wednesday…
Tafari Makonnen entered the world in July 1892 in a mud-brick house in Ejersa Goro, a village in the dusty highlands of Ethiopia. His father, Ras Makonnen, was cousin to Emperor Menelik II and governor of Harar province. European powers were carving up Africa like a Sunday roast, but Ethiopia remained stubbornly independent. Tafari received a traditional Ethiopian education, learning ‘Ge’ez’ - the ancient liturgical language - alongside French and English. His father died in 1906, and he became the governor of the Harar province. He was fourteen. In 1916, following a palace coup in which the unpopular Emperor Lij Iyasu V was deposed in favour of Empress Zewditu, Tafari Makonnen became regent and heir apparent. He was now known as Ras Tafari Makonnen. In 1930, Ras Tafari acceded to the throne with a coronation that exceeded the national budget. Wedding guests and treasury ministers all wept, for different reasons. Ras Tafari now pronounced himself Haile Selassie I. When Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, Selassie was forced to take exile in Bath, England for five years. In 1941, when the Allies liberated Ethiopia, Haile Selassie returned to his throne. Rewind for just a moment: In Jamaica in 1920, the black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey had prophesied,
Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is at hand.
When Ras Tafari Makonnen became Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930, some of Garvey’s followers assumed this to be a fulfilment of his prophecy. They founded the Rastafarian movement in the same year and proclaimed Haile Selassie I as the Messiah. When Selassie visited Jamaica in 1966, he was a little bewildered by their adoration of him as their Messiah. He was, after all, a devout Ethiopian Orthodox Christian.
Ras Tafari Makonnen, aka Haile Selassie I, 1970.
Haile Selassie ruled until 1974, when a military coup finally ended 3,000 years of Ethiopian Solomonic dynasty, a royal lineage that traced back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Ras Tafari Makonnen (Haile Selassie I) died under house arrest fifty years ago this Wednesday, 27 August 1975, aged 83.
Footnote As I was studying the story of Ras Tafari Makonnen, I couldn’t help think of the parallels with Monty Python’s 1979 film, Life of Brian. I was 15 years old when the film was released; it was all any school kid could talk about for weeks. I guess it’s served Christianity in the same way that the Book of Mormon Musical has served the Church of the Latter Day Saints. For the record; in the film, Brian Cohen, a hapless street vendor from Judea, gets mistaken for the Messiah. Repeatedly insisting that he wasn’t the Messiah only made his followers believe even more.
Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!
In case that hasn’t rung any bells; you may have seen, or heard about, the final scene of the film where Brian is being crucified along with a number of other prisoners. Unexpectedly, they all break out whistling and singing Eric Idle’s song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. Bizarre, dark, absurd. Yet strangely uplifting.
Question of the Week
She was a Swedish actress born in 1915 who would become a Hollywood star. She appeared alongside Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942), Charles Boyer in Gaslight (1944) and a whole host of stars in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). Who was she?
And Finally…
In 1966, the Beatles released their 11th hit, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, which went to number one on the UK Singles Charts for four weeks in the August. The single was a double A-side, with Yellow Submarine on the flip side. Eleanor Rigby is a haunting song, a lament for the lonely;
All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?
Eleanor Rigby ‘picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been, lives in a dream’. Meanwhile, Father McKenzie is ‘writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear, no one comes near’. Paul McCartney had drawn inspiration for the song from an old lady he visited in his Liverpool neighbourhood as a teenager. Their regular interaction left him with a lasting impression of a community where many lonely souls lived in isolation, door-to-door. McCartney has said that the name Eleanor Rigby arose from a mash of ‘Eleanor’ from the actress ‘Eleanor Bron’ who had starred with the Beatles in their 1965 film Help!, and Rigby which he spotted on a sign in Bristol for the store Rigby & Evans Ltd. McKenzie was pulled from a telephone directory, by the way.
The real Eleanor Rigby was born 130 years ago this Friday, 29 August 1895, in Woolton, Liverpool. Her father, Arthur, died weeks after she was born. Eleanor remained single throughout her twenties and early thirties, working as a scullery maid at Liverpool City Hospital. She eventually married in 1930 at the age of 34, unable to have children. Sadly, she died from a brain haemorrhage nine years later in the home where she was born. Eleanor was buried at St Peter’s Parish Church in Woolton. It was an ordinary life that should have floated away in history with a puff. However, eighteen years later, two Liverpudlian youths met at the Woolton village fete, held at St Peter’s Church; Paul McCartney and John Lennon. John and Paul subsequently often walked through the graveyard, past the grave of Eleanor Rigby.
Paul stands by his recollection of the song’s inspiration, but admits there’s a chance he subconsciously clocked the Eleanor Rigby grave during those cemetery walks which may have subtly influenced his choice of name for the song. Ironically, in death, Eleanor Rigby has found the company she never had in life. Her grave has become a place of pilgrimage for fans around the world. What do you think? Is this just a case of coincidence, or is the connection too strong?
Eleanor Rigby Died in the church and was buried along with her name Nobody came Father McKenzie Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave No one was saved
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Steve
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The Hollywood actress born in Sweden in 1915 was Ingrid Bergman. She was born 80 years ago this Friday, 29 August 1945 and would pass away on her 67th birthday. She became famous for her role as Ilsa in Casablanca, but she most desperately wanted to play Maria as Gary Cooper’s love interest in the film, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, based on Ernest Hemingway’s story set in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39.
It was suggested that a tall, blonde Swedish actress wasn’t best-suited to play the part of a simple, Spanish mountain peasant. Nonetheless, perhaps with Hemingway’s support, Bergman played Maria in the film, to mixed receptions. Despite receiving an Oscar nomination, the critics slammed her performance. In her personal life, Bergman worked tirelessly to help those in need, supporting UNICEF and generously donating to organisations involved in humanitarian aid and animal welfare.
…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. JOHN DONNEMeditation XVII, 1624.
ATTRIBUTIONS
Oil canvas of Juan Antonio Lavalleja: Jean Philippe Goulu, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
A gaucho ropes a bull: Juan Ravenet (1766-c.1821), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The oath of the Thirty-three Orientales: Juan Manuel Blanes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Map of South America in 1821: English: Cummings & Hilliard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Monumento a Lavalleja, Montevideo: Andrés Franchi Ugart…, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The drowning of Captain Matthew Webb: CC BY-NC 2.0, Bradford Timeline.
Ras Tafari Makonnen: unknown; according to [1] and [2] an official portrait of which b/w copies were distributed by the Ethiopian government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Eleanor Rigby’s gravestone: Loco Steve from Bromley, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
For Whom the Bell Tolls; Trailer screenshot (Paramount Pictures), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The death of Colonel Brandsen: Augusto Ballerini (1857-1897), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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