It's Columbus (Or Settlement History) Day, Whatever...

For more than a decade of Columbus Days I've referenced this interesting post by James C. Bennett on some surprising complexities regarding the holiday. Here's the summary paragraph from my post:

Caboto? Cabot? Yes, it's the same explorer. John Cabot, often identified as the "English" navigator, was really an Italian. In 1497 he financed his "discovery" of North America - not just a few islands as Columbus did in 1492 - with English money. Leave it to those crafty English to Anglicize him and create mass confusion among school children and armchair authorities for centuries to come.

 

Cabot in his Venetian Robes, Guistino Menescardi, 1762

Putting aside Bennett's Calvinist Puritan "depravity of man" talk, readers know full-well my opinion on the superlatives and "firsts" regarding the exploration, occupation, and settlement of the planet. Whether it's Leif Erikson, Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Kennewick Man or whomever, we should know by now it's the politics that matters. Given that, Power Line's John Hinderaker offers his perspective on this day. Glenn Reynold follows up with his opinion on Instapundit, including a recommednation that readers explore Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, a superb biography by the renowned writer and maritime historian, Samuel Eliot Morison.

And so we are left with a national holiday celebrating an explorer who "discovered America" but never set foot on the North American continent. Enough said. My you have an enjoyable Columbus Day holiday and thank Bjarni Herjolfsson for staying out to sea.

To Fly Faster Than The Speed Of Sound

The legendary test pilot, Chuck Yeager, passed away in December 2020 at 97. About twenty years earlier I had the good fortune to attend a conversation he had with his best friend and fellow flying ace, Bud Anderson, recalling their exploits over Europe in World War II. It was one of the most memorable events in the aviation history aspect of my career. Listening to them left me wondering how either had survived their antics let alone the combat. And although I had read hundreds of pages about them it took seeing them in person as old warriors to understand just how extraordinary they were.

On October 14, 1947, Yeager was in California and about to achieve a landmark in aviation when he flew his Bell X-1 into history on the shoulders of scores of aerospace pioneers who helped him pass through an imaginary doorway and reach the supersonic speedway in the sky.

From his autobiography, here is his description of that event:

. . . Bob Cardenas, the B-29 driver, asked if I was ready.

"Hell, yes," I said. "Let's get it over with.

"He dropped the X-1 at 20,000 feet, but his dive speed was once again too slow and the X-1 started to stall. I fought it with the control wheel for about five hundred feet, and finally got her nose down. The moment we picked up speed I fired all four rocket chambers in rapid sequence. We climbed at .88 Mach and began to buffet, so I flipped the stabilizer switch and changed the setting two degrees. We smoothed right out, and at 36,000 feet, I turned off two rocket chambers. At 40,000 feet, we were still climbing at a speed of .92 Mach. Leveling off at 42,000 feet, I had thirty percent of my fuel, so I turned on rocket chamber three and immediately reached .96 Mach. I noticed the faster I got, the smoother the ride. Suddenly the Mach needle began to fluctuate. It went up to .965 Mach - then tipped right off the scale. I thought I was seeing things! We were flying supersonic! And it was as smooth as a baby's bottom: Grandma could be sitting up there sipping lemonade. I kept the speed off the scale for about twenty seconds, and raised the nose to slow down. I was thunderstruck. After all the anxiety, breaking the sound barrier turned out to be a perfectly paved speedway.

I radioed Jack in the B-29,

"Hey, Ridley, that Machmeter is acting screwy. It just went off the scale on me."
"Fluctuated off?"
"Yeah, at point nine-six-five."

"Son, you is imagining things."

"Must be. I'm still wearing my ears and nothing else fell off, neither."

. . .

And so I was a hero this day. As usual, the fire trucks raced out to where the ship had rolled to a stop on the lakebed. As usual, I hitched a ride back to the hangar with the fire chief. That warm desert sun really felt wonderful. My ribs ached.

 

His ribs ached but that ache had nothing to do with his record flight. He cracked two of them in a horseback riding accident a day and a half earlier but wasn't about to let the issue keep him from an important mission. This was but one example of many obstacles Yeager overcame on his way to legendary status in American aviation history.

Interested readers can learn more about the man and the early years of the nation's military aviation and aerospace history in Yeager: An Autobiography, an outstanding read originally published in 1985. A valuable companion book providing context and additional history on the nation's early manned space program is Tom Wolfe's 1979 classic, The Right Stuff.




Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Yeager with Bell X-1, U.S. Air Force, www.af.mil
Cover photo, Yeager: An Autobiography, General Chuck Yeager and Leo Janus, Bantam, 1985.

Text:
quotation, Yeager: An Autobiography, General Chuck Yeager and Leo Janus, Bantam, 1985.
www.wikipedia.com
www.chuckyeager.com

Art Tatum: Magician At The Keyboard

He had perfect pitch and came from a musical family. He was virtually blind but that did not stop him from reaching the pinnacle of piano jazz. Tatum's piano technique was all his own. As a child he learned compositions by ear listening to recordings, piano rolls, and the radio. He often had no idea that he was copying in two hands a musical performance by four hands. After basing his early performance on the stride piano style of James P. Johnson and Fats Waller Tatum's piano technique soon evolved into a flying lyric in the right hand riding on a modified stride in the left. In time his skills made him a magician at the keyboard. Here is his famous 1933 rendition of Tea For Two:

And a bit more up-tempo, here is the master of improvisation with the tune, Tiger Rag, also recorded in 1933:

When you have enjoyed jazz for fifty years and listen to Art Tatum you'll hear Oscar Peterson, Billy Taylor, Thelonious Monk, Johnny Costa and many others as Tatum dances effortlessly across the keyboard. He was so good, his legacy in music may be timeless. In fact, the great stride pianist, Fats Waller, once said upon seeing Tatum enter the club where Waller was performing, "I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house."

At the Vogue Room, New York, 1948

Tatum was born on this day in Toledo, Ohio, in 1909 and died in Los Angeles in 1956. 



Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Text:
Art Tatum entry, wikipedia,com (for quote source see note 2)