American Revolution History - Episode 5 - Sweet, Costly Victory

How did the American Revolution reach its fascinating end?

In episode 5 of the American Revolution History podcast series, you will find out!

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The Siege of Yorktown by Auguste Couder

We follow on from episode 4 in our series on the American Revolution, World War, and finish the story of how America became a nation. In this episode we look at the events that led to the American Revolutionary War ending. We shall see how the battle for the Southern colonies came to a close, and the amazing events around Yorktown, Virginia. Then there were the battles that continued to take place around the world that were linked to the conflict. And the aftermath.

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George Levrier-Jones

Let Them See What They’ve Done – The Kennedys and the Swearing-in of Lyndon B. Johnson

The assassination of John F. Kennedy inevitably came as a huge shock, but this shock was compounded for those people who had to lead the US afterwards. In this article, Christopher Benedict explains what happened in the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination, and the problems and politics between Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson as they sought to move forward.

The swearing in of Lyndon B. Johnson in November 1963.

A Heartbeat Away

You would be hard-pressed to find, among the men who peevishly held the office, a favorable opinion uttered of the vice presidency.

John Adams complained to his wife Abigail of the frustrating ineffectiveness affixed to “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”

The vice presidency “ought to be abolished” in the mind of Theodore Roosevelt, who offered his grumpy yet prescient perspective that “the man who occupies it may at any moment be everything, but meanwhile he is practically nothing.”

Franklin Roosevelt’s first VP John Nance Garner proclaimed the position “not worth a bucket of warm piss”, while Harry Truman, FDRs third and final second-in-command, joked that vice presidents “were about as useful as a cow’s fifth teat.”

Lyndon Johnson was certainly no stranger to the discontent of thwarted ambition and irksome exclusion. Consistently and deliberately closed out of the president’s inner circle, it was not exactly a well-kept secret that LBJ reserved the greatest measure of his odious disdain for Kennedy’s Attorney General, brother, and ruthless right-hand man Bobby, who Johnson thought “acted like he was the custodian of the Kennedy dream, some kind of rightful heir to the throne.” Jack, meanwhile, would send Johnson off on as many insignificant overseas diplomatic missions as he could concoct with the express purpose of sparing himself the despondent look pulling down Lyndon’s already droopy features as he moped in a perpetual state of self-pity around the White House.

Power Struggle

Lyndon Johnson was literally and figuratively kept in the dark at Parkland Hospital. Seated with Lady Bird in a small, dimly lit waiting room as physicians down the hall attempted frantically to achieve what everyone knew to be the impossible and save John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s life, he was simultaneously processing the pandemonium of Dealey Plaza while looking as far as he dared into the immediate future and the very real probability of his impending ascendance to the presidency. But, amidst the confusion of emergency responders who did not have the time to give him - and some of Kennedy’s other men – an update, Johnson yet again found himself odd man out.

“The disaster had exposed a hidden weakness, the allegiance of individual agents to a man,” William Manchester penned in his masterful The Death of a President. “As long as Kennedy had been in command the lines of authority were clear. Now the old order had been transformed into hopeless disorder.”

Streaked in gore, Jackie refused to be parted from her husband’s side, insisting “I want to be in there when he dies” and that a priest (Father Oscar Huber) be summoned to administer last rites to Jack before the official pronouncement of death could be made for the sake of his immortal soul.

Johnson, meanwhile, awaited word of the inevitable which he would obstinately accept only from the president’s personal friend and political aide Ken O’Donnell who, with Dave Powers, Larry O’Brien and others, comprised JFKs doggedly loyal ‘Irish Mafia’. Whatever the gruesome reality, Lyndon Johnson would never be their president. Johnson, not for the last time that day, would be left wanting. Secret Service agent Emory Roberts was the first to alert Johnson to the president’s mortal demise, but Assistant Press Secretary ‘Mac’ Kilduff would have to do in satisfying Lyndon’s desire for a spokesman from the Kennedy contingency, the first to address Johnson as “Mr. President”.

Only then was LBJ spirited away, the enormity of the situation pressing down upon Lady Bird in her later recollection of flags already flying at half-mast on buildings between Parkland Hospital and Love Field. Kennedy’s body would make the same journey only after a tense standoff between Parkland’s medical staff backed up by local law enforcement and the Secret Service, Irish Mafia, and Jackie Kennedy who collectively used the president’s coffin on a gurney as a battering ram to force their way out. Kilduff finally addressed the press to formally announce to the nation, “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately one o’clock central standard time today here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound in the brain.”

Bobby’s Wounds Ripped Wide

The trauma of Robert Kennedy having to learn of his brother’s assassination was compounded immeasurably by the callous insensitivity with which, and from whom, the news was delivered. Bobby would suffer two indignities dealt out in quick succession by the men he hated most. The feelings of loathing, it goes without saying, were reciprocal.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover phoned Bobby’s Hickory Hill home in McLean, Virginia and, with no pretense at sympathy or human decency, informed Kennedy, “I have news for you. The president’s been shot. I think it’s serious. I am endeavoring to get details. I will call you back when I find out more.”

Bobby’s sudden and abominable grief would be rudely interrupted one hour later.

Lyndon Johnson “had been lobbying his bereaved cabin mates one by one,” writes Jeff Shesol in his book Mutual Contempt, “forcing a consensus that the plane should not leave the ground before the transition of power was properly-constitutionally-confirmed.” Whatever his aims were in assuring that presidential continuity be achieved swiftly and legitimately, Johnson’s decision to seek the guidance of the nation’s Attorney General, who at this moment in time was above all a freshly grieving brother, was consistent with behavior that Godfrey McHugh (Air Force Aide to President Kennedy, who had once dated Jackie Bouvier) found “obscene”.

“A lot of people think I should be sworn in right away,” Johnson urged when he got through to Bobby.

“Do you have any objection to that?” He then tactlessly barraged the slain president’s sibling with very specific legal, procedural questions pertaining to taking the oath of office, forcing Bobby to consult his Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach who was “absolutely stunned” by Johnson’s crass requests.

The Judge

Elected to the Texas legislature in 1931 and subsequently 14th District Judge in Dallas, Sarah T. Hughes became acquainted with Lyndon Johnson “in 1948 when he ran for the Senate and I campaigned for him at that time.” In 1961, she was appointed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas by President Kennedy over the objections of brother Bobby who was of the opinion that Hughes was “too old” and “would be able to retire after ten years”.

She recounted her drive to Love Field following the entreaty for her specific presence to swear in Lyndon Johnson aboard Air Force One. “I was thinking...that I must get there in a hurry, because Vice President Johnson is always in a hurry and wants things done right now and I shouldn’t delay. And the other thing I was thinking about was what the oath of office was...I was brash enough to think that I could give the oath without having looked it up.” Upon her arrival, she walked into the aircraft’s crowded and stiflingly hot second compartment where she encountered and hugged Lyndon and Lady Bird. Rather than getting directly to the business at hand, Hughes was informed by Johnson that “Mrs. Kennedy wants to be here. We’ll wait for her.”

Ken O’Donnell was charged with the unthinkable task of retrieving Jackie from the rear of the plane for her placement in Johnson’s contrived photo-op and angrily refused. He ultimately relented and was stunned by the nobility of Jackie’s response once she had emerged from freshening up in the restroom.                          

“It’s the least I can do”, she said.

The Photographer

Jacqueline Kennedy was rightfully protective of her children and warned away press members from taking or publishing pictures of them, a wish that, back in those days, could be counted upon to be respected. Her husband, on the other hand, relished the opportunity to ring up his personal photographer Cecil Stoughton for impromptu photo sessions, one of which would produce - among the many iconic images he would capture during Kennedy’s 1,000 day administration - what would forever remain his own personal favorite. Caroline and John Jr. appear to be singing and dancing in front of the president’s desk in the oval office as their doting father sits in his chair and happily claps along. Stoughton is also responsible for the only known picture of Jack, Bobby, and Marilyn Monroe together (at a Democratic fundraiser), as well as Kennedy’s inauguration, state dinners and White House visits, personal vacation snapshots, and national magazine covers. He would also be assigned, as a photojournalist for Time magazine, to Bobby Kennedy’s railway funeral procession.

Kennedy with his children in the oval office.

Accompanying the Kennedys to Dallas, he photographed their arrival on the tarmac at Love Field, rode several cars back in the motorcade, and was rushed along with all other participants to Parkland Hospital. Witnessing Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson being escorted from the premises, Stoughton asked where they were going and, after being told Washington, replied “So am I” and was conveyed to Love Field in the cruiser of a Texas state trooper which was very nearly shot at by police officers guarding Air Force One with good intentions but itchy trigger fingers. He switched out the color film he had been using that day for black and white that would be suitable for the wire services and was mortified when the shutter of his Hasselblad camera would not engage as the makeshift ceremony began. Fortunately, after a vigorous shake or two, he was able to fire off twenty shots while standing on a couch behind and to the right of Judge Hughes who grasped a Catholic missal on which an extraordinarily solemn Lyndon Johnson placed his left hand, the right raised at a ninety degree angle. ‘Mac’ Kilduff held President Kennedy’s Dictaphone between Hughes and Johnson to record audio documentation of the swearing-in. Lady Bird stands to the right of her husband, partially obscured, while Jackie is positioned prominently and strategically to his left, the bloodstains on her skirt and stockings undetectable because of the manner in which Stoughton prudently framed his shots.

Insubordination

Before landing at Andrews Air Force Base, Johnson made certain that the press was aware that their presence was not only permissible, but sanctioned. His hope was to be filmed stepping off of Air Force One, escorting Jackie as well as Kennedy’s coffin in a visible show of personal solidarity and presidential continuity. Kilduff tried to convince Mrs. Kennedy that it was best to offload the president’s body from a side or rear entrance out of view of the cameras, but she maintained, “We’ll go out the regular way. I want them to see what they have done.” Furthermore, Jackie resisted the suggestion that she change into a clean outfit, one that was not befouled by her husband’s blood and brain matter. “No”, she repeated disobediently. “Let them see what they’ve done.”

No sooner had Air Force One touched down in D.C. than Robert Kennedy burst onboard and headed directly for Jackie. In a breach of both protocol and etiquette, he pushed past Lyndon Johnson, the new president, without so much as acknowledging his existence. Along with O’Donnell, Powers, O’Brien, Kilduff, and McHugh, they hurriedly disembarked, carrying the coffin with them to a waiting ambulance. An abandoned and incensed Johnson was thwarted once more by the Kennedy assembly, promising those left to listen that “I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help, and god’s.”

It would not take Johnson long to begin throwing his considerable weight around the White House, ordering Kennedy’s personal secretary Evelyn Lincoln, on the morning of November 23 to gather her things and depart the Executive offices so that he could bring in “my own girls”. Having already met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff the night before, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk prodded the new president to move immediately into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, something even he knew to be imprudent, not to mention insensitive.

Regardless of Bobby Kennedy’s vitriolic evaluation of Johnson’s haste to occupy the oval office or else “the world would fall apart”, LBJ did in fact have sincerely fond feelings for Jackie and sought not to injure her, especially in an already fragile state. Lady Bird, who had quite a way with words, put it like this: “Lyndon would like to take all the stars in the sky and string them on a necklace for Mrs. Kennedy.” He was, however, an egocentric individual and would be deeply wounded by the fact that Jackie kept him at a physical and emotional distance from then on, in favor of Bobby to whom she was bound by grief.

With that in mind, it is a good thing for Johnson that Jackie’s 1964 conversations with Arthur Schlesinger would not be published until forty-seven years later. In them, she reveals these none too flattering sentiments. “I guess it’s very good for the country that he could go around and make this air of good feeling and lull so many people into this sense of security, which they wanted after all the tragedy of November. He can’t bear to ever be alone and face something awful. Maybe he wants to disassociate himself so if it goes wrong, he can say ‘I wasn’t there.’”  

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Sources

• Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After (2009, Produced by Time Travel Unlimited for History Channel)
• The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2014, Simon & Schuster)
• Robert Kennedy and His Times by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1978, Houghton and Mifflin)
• The Death of a President: November 1963 by William Manchester (1967, Harper & Row)
• Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade (1997, W.W. Norton & Co.)
• Sarah T. Hughes Oral History Interview 10/7/68 by Joe B. Frantz (from the archives of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library
• Cecil Stoughton Dies at 88; Documented White House by Margalit Fox (New York Times, November 6, 2008)
• Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy: Interviews With Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. 1964 (2011, Hyperion)                                                                                                                                                                                                      

American Revolution History – Episode 4 – World War

When faced against the American rebels, France and other European Powers, how did Britain gain the upper hand in the American Revolution?

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General George Washington

In this podcast we look at how the American Revolution became a truly global war over the years from 1779. The war spread to more countries and territories dotted around the world, and Britain herself became involved in the fighting. However, the most important battles ultimately took place in the Thirteen Colonies, especially the southern states. All that plus how 2.6 square miles of land became integral to the American Revolution as we see how the British took this growing global challenge in their stride and inflicted serious damage on the rebels – for a time.

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George Levrier-Jones

American Revolution History – Episode 3 – Great Battles, Desperate Measures

Could Britain build on its success around New York in 1776, and put the final nail in the rebellion against its rule in the Thirteen Colonies?

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A major decision taken by General Burgoyne in 1777. But what did he do?

Today, we see what happened in the fateful years of 1777 and 1778, years of great contrast in the war. In 1777, the British were trying to ambitiously destroy American forces. They had a major force in the north, and another further south that was to attack Philadelphia, the seat of the rebel Continental Congress. These moves would lead to a seismic shift in the war and led to the Great Powers of Europe becoming involved in it.

We can even say that these years made the war.

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George Levrier-Jones

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American Revolution History – Episode 2 – The Point of No Return

How did Britain and the Thirteen Colonies come to the point of no return, leading to the start of the American Revolutionary War?

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The Battle of Bunker Hill by Percy Moran (1909)

In this episode we see what happened on the fateful day of April 19 1775 and understand how one single shot became so very important. We will also see what took place over the course of 1775 and a very famous declaration that took place in 1776, as well as the Battle of Bunker Hill, fighting in Canada, and the Battle of Long Island.

In short, we see how the war really broke out.

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George Levrier-Jones

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American Revolution History – Episode 1 – Murmurings for Freedom

Just how did the United States of America gain its independence? It’s a story familiar to some of us, and George Levrier-Jones is going to tell the story in his own informed, concise way.

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The Boston Massacre, Alonzo Chappel, 1878

This revolution had it all. A yearning desire for liberty, great battles, constantly shifting sands, a result which left the world in a very different place. It also happened at a time when the world was going through a new stage of globalization and so set the tone for what was to happen in the revolutionary and colonial late 18th and 19th centuries.

And in this episode we set the scene to the war by telling you about 18th century America, the French and Indian War, and those major events that happened in the years before the American Revolutionary War or the American War of Independence broke out. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Continental Congress were just a few of these events…

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George Levrier-Jones

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Menticide in the Eastern Bloc – But what does it mean?

The story of Mihail Shipkov is indicative of what happened to many people in communist regimes in the years after World War Two. For his opposition to the government, he was to pay a heavy price – the disturbingly titled “Menticide”. In this article, we conclude the Mihail Shipkov story that was started here and explain American reactions to Menticide.

Richard H. Cummings returns to the site (after the podcast based on his book here) and explains.

Only in the contest of ideas can there be a final victory, which will yield us one world dedicated to peace with freedom.

 - Breakdown, April 1950

In April 1950 broadcasting to Bulgaria and other countries behind the Iron Curtain over Radio Free Europe was yet to come. The National Committee for Free Europe (NCFE), reprinted 100,000 copies of the Shipkov story in a 31-page pamphlet in the “public interest” with the long descriptive title Breakdown: how the Communist secret police are able to pry confessions of treason out of men and women who love their country, a story courageously laid bare for the first time in March, 1950. 

The first page contained this summary of the pamphlet: 

Telling how the Communist secret police are able to pry confessions of treason out of men and women who love their country, a story courageously laid bare for the first time by Michael Shipkov.

The cover of the pamphlet Breakdown.

In an April 25, 1950, cover letter to NCFE members, including future President Dwight D. Eisenhower and future CIA Director Allen Dulles, NCFE President DeWitt C. Poole wrote, “Our Committee III --the Committee on American Contacts -- has prepared ... pamphlets as part of our campaign to reach the American public ... I am sure you will agree that these pamphlets will prove useful in our struggle for victory in the contest of ideas.” 

The back cover of the pamphlet told the American public:

The Committee's members are convinced that the danger of the present crisis cannot be exaggerated. Freedom is at stake. At this very moment it is being decided what kind of world our grandchildren are going to live in.

The ultimate decision lies in the contest of ideas. Only a world relieved of totalitarian despotism and held together by the tested ideals of freedom and democracy can live in peace. In the struggle for this consummation the National Committee for Free Europe offers every single citizen the opportunity to throw in his weight.

Allen W. Dulles.

Allen Dulles sent a copy of the NCFE pamphlet to psychiatrist Dr. George Eaton Daniels, M.D., Columbia University, and asked him if he would review it in view of a possible “psychiatric appraisal of the effect of the procedures used by Iron Curtain countries to obtain confessions from their prisoners.”

Dulles followed this up with a telephone conversation with Dr. Daniels, who turned down the appraisal possibility for professional reasons but supplied Dulles with names of other specialists who might be willing to help, including Dr. Iago Galdston.         

On April 27, 1950, Daniels sent a note to Dulles, with Galdston’s telephone number and address, and the comment: “As I mentioned, the Academy has a section on Neurology and Psychiatry from which I believe competent neurologists and psychiatrists could be selected for the study which you have in mind.” Dulles made wrote a note for the file on April 28, 1950:

Dr. Daniels, after talking with Dr. Nolan D. C. Lewis, suggested that possibly the New York Academy of Medicine would be the best organ through which to work and that Dr. Galdston at the Academy would be the appropriate man to approach. The New York Academy could, of course, bring in any nation-wide organization that seemed desirable.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt was an ardent supporter of the NCFE and Crusade for Freedom. In 1950 she wrote about this pamphlet in her national syndicated column, My Day, which was published six days a week from 1935 to 1962. In her March 9, 1950, column she wrote:

I am sure many people were very much interested in the account given by Michael Shipkov, a Bulgarian, who explained how it was possible to make individuals confess treason in a Communist-dominated court, regardless of the truth. I am sorry to say that intimidation has been used in practically every country by some of its officials who felt it legitimate because they were trying to obtain some particular kind of testimony. I have heard with concern of methods used occasionally in some of our police courts. None of them, however, seems to have acquired quite the technique that brings about these mass confessions in the Soviet court-rooms. I was sorry this morning to read that Mr. Shipkov had been taken a prisoner and now has confessed to being a spy for the Americans!

In her June 2, 1950 column, she wrote:

A little booklet I have just read, published by The National Committee for Free Europe, Inc., called: "Breakdown"—"The story of Michael Shipkov in the hands of the secret police." This pamphlet will give you a picture of how, under authoritarian regimes, confessions are finally extorted. One shudders to think what horrors confront people where justice no longer exists; where they live under constant espionage and where freedom is something they may once have dreamed of but no longer know as a reality.

It seems impossible for people ever to free themselves under the circumstances described in this pamphlet. Neither is it conceivable for a nation to go forward and develop economically, spiritually or socially under this type of government. Living must become so utterly futile. Even under the lash of fear one must cease to work and produce because life is so completely valueless. No one could want to bring children into a world where people are no longer allowed any personal freedom and must face moral and mental domination.

Dulles and the Shipkov report

On April 10, 1953, Allen Dulles, now CIA Director, made a speech entitled “Brain Warfare,” at the National Alumni Conference of Graduate Council of Princeton University. He referenced the Shipkov case: “The techniques employed in the case of Shipkov were somewhat crude but give the pattern of the later more refined methods.” 

Dulles then quoted from the Shipkov report:

Out of the jumbled memories, some impressions stand out vivid. One: they are not over interested in what you tell them. It would appear that the ultimate purpose of this treatment is to break you down completely, and deprive you and any will power or private thought or self-esteem, which they achieve remarkably quickly. And they seem to pursue a classic confession, well round off in the phraseology, explaining why you were induced by environment and education to enter the services of the enemies of Communism, how you placed your capacities in their services, what ultimate goal did you pursue – the overthrow of the people’s government through foreign intervention. And they appear to place importance on the parallel appearance of repentance and self-condemnation that come up with the breaking down of their prisoner.

Quite simply, that explains the terrible menticide.

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This article is based on a piece that originally appeared on the fascinating site, http://coldwarradios.blogspot.com.

Spanish Civil War History – Episode 5 – A Bloody Transformation

Our final episode on the Spanish Civil War looks at how the war ended and its bloody aftermath.

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We left you last time with a weakened and divided Republic. In November 1938, the Republicans retreated back across the River Ebro having been outfought by the Nationalist’s superior forces in the Battle of the Ebro. The Republican’s threw all of their energies into that battle, but failed in their objectives.

This episode considers the aftermath of that battle, including the Nationalist advance on Catalonia, how the war ended, another internal civil war, and the bloody transformation that occurred in the years and decades after the war.

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See you soon,

George Levrier-Jones

email: info@itshistorypodcasts.com

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Spanish Civil War History – Episode 4 - The Decisive Stages

Episode 4 in our Spanish Civil War history series looks at the key stages in the war.

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We left you last time in 1937 in a Spain that was increasingly reflecting the great divide that had occurred in Europe between right and left. On one side were the Nationalists, under the strong conservative leadership of General Franco. On the other, were the Republicans, with a Socialist Prime Minister, but increasing Communist influence.

The Nationalists had the upper hand in the first stages of the war, although the situation was starting to become more complex. The Republicans were trying to smash the Nationalist lines, while the Nationalists were trying to take the Republican’s territory in the east and north. This episode considers events as 1937 turned in to 1938, and ends by considering the greatest battle of the war.

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George Levrier-Jones

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Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle – And what he discovered…

Charles Darwin’s remarkable travels aboard HMS Beagle opened his eyes to the concept of natural selection and paved the way towards a scientific and human revolution. In this article, Davide Previti explains the importance of the voyage and what happened when Darwin returned to Britain.

A photograph of Charles Darwin from 1881. By Herbert Rose Barraud.

In December 1831 Charles Darwin set off on the historic journey that would lead him to write The Origin of the Species. This was a book that would not only begin a scientific revolution but would also be responsible for changing our perception of humanity and of our position in the world.

As he experienced earthquakes and volcanoes he came to understand how the earth changes, he found the fossils of extinct mammals that would make him question the fixity of species, and he realized that both animals and humans must compete to survive.

A Chaos Of Delight

Darwin was offered the chance to join Robert Fitzroy, the Captain of the rebuilt brig HMS Beagle on a voyage to Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America. Fitzroy feared the loneliness of command and invited Darwin to accompany him as the ship’s naturalist. Darwin brought weapons and books for the journey and the Beagle set sail from Plymouth in southern England with a crew of 73 on December 27, 1831.

The voyage was not an easy one as Darwin suffered from terrible seasickness; however the physical hardships he had to endure were offset by the incredible opportunities he was presented with to explore the world. As the ship’s naturalist, Darwin was able to leave the confines of the Beagle to pursue his own interests and as a result, over the course of the five-year voyage, he only spent 18 months aboard HMS Beagle.

In Brazil, Darwin witnessed slavery first hand and pondered how sustainable the system could be, noting in his diary:

“If the free blacks increase in numbers (as they must) and become discontented at not being equal to white men, the epoch of the general liberation would not be far distant.”[1]

It was also in Brazil that Darwin found the Rainforests that would leave his mind in ‘a chaos of delight.’ He spent months in Rio de Janeiro studying ‘gaily coloured’ flatworms and spiders. It was here that Darwin would find evidence against the beneficent design of nature when he witnessed parasitic wasps that would lay eggs inside live caterpillars, which would then be eaten alive by the grubs when they hatched.[2] Darwin also discovered fossils and the bones of huge, long extinct mammals, which raised questions about what could have caused these animals to die out.

On the final leg of the voyage Darwin completed his diary and completed 1,750 pages of notes. He packed up all his samples, the fossils, skins, bones and carcasses he had collected. This was the raw material he would use to formulate his theory of evolution.

Heresy and Corruption

The fossils Darwin had collected fuelled his speculations. In 1837 he became a convinced transmutationist (evolutionist) after his Beagle collections had been examined by expert British naturalists.[3] He had brought back the fossils of huge extinct armadillos, anteaters, and sloths that he hypothesized had been replaced by their own kind according to some unknown “law of succession of types.” These theories were considered, by Cambridge clerics as:

“bestial, if not blasphemous, heresy that would corrupt mankind and destroy the spiritual safeguards of the social order.”[4]

As a Unitarian, Darwin based his beliefs on reason and experience. He used such beliefs to frame his image of mankind’s place in nature, stating in his first evolutionary notebook:

“Animals whom we have made our slaves we do not like to consider our equals. Do not slave holders wish to make the black man other kind? Animals with affections, imitation, fear of death, pain, sorrow for the dead, respect.”

Darwin continued to question religion, especially Christianity. Identifying himself as agnostic, he would eventually stop believing in Christianity altogether and instead adopted natural selection as his deity.[5] For years Darwin filled his notebooks with ruminations and ideas. He considered extinction and noted his theory that life represented a branching tree rather than a ladder that humans sat at the top of.

At this time Darwin was not the only scientist that had theories of evolution. The difference between his notion and those of his peers was that Darwin put forward the unique idea of natural selection, a theory that explains how and why evolution happens.

It is said that Darwin first began to formulate the idea of natural selection when he saw how breeders could effectively change dogs and pigeons by identifying and accentuating certain traits through breeding. Equally, the population was expanding in Britain at the time, and in 1834 a poor law was amended. This played a role in separating men and women to stop them breeding.

Darwin realized that the increase in the population had lead to a lack of resources. And, with more mouths to feed there was less to go around. It occurred to Darwin this competition would ultimately weed out the unfit and it was when he applied this idea to nature that he had formulated the basis of a theory that would forever change the way we view life on earth.

Darwin took 20 years to publish The Origin of the Species, which would go into great detail to explain the theory of natural selection. He had seen so much on his voyage, he undoubtedly found it difficult to find the time to condense his experiences into proofs that would back-up his theory. He did however produce a 230-page abstract of his theory in 1842 and would expand that to a 300-page paper in the summer of 1844. Darwin revised his ideas over the course of those two decades and added to them as he came across new evidence and information.

An Intellectual and Conceptual Revolution

When he finally published The Origin of The Species with its explanation of natural selection, without reference to God, a higher power or a creator, it changed the way scientists looked at evolution. According to the eminent late evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, "Eliminating God from science made room for strictly scientific explanations of all natural phenomena; it gave rise to positivism; it produced a powerful intellectual and spiritual revolution, the effects of which have lasted to this day."[6]

More than just something that changed the world of science, the notion man, animals and plants were effectively descending from the same replicable cell is something that is very difficult to put into perspective even nowadays. Man, the ruler of the world, the smartest of creatures, the creator of art and music was not born superior from the outset, but equal. This thought was unbearable to many at the time and that is no surprise. The famous depictions of Darwin as a monkey that appeared on newspapers such as The London Sketch-book and in satirical magazines like La Petite Lune appear to us nowadays as testaments of fear and disbelief.

This moment in history is capital: man’s status amongst all things, was, once again, completely downsized. It is reminiscent of when Galileo told the world the Earth was not the center of the universe but only one of the many planets orbiting the larger sun. Man has always had an idea of itself as more important in the order of things and realizations that point to its smallness and insignificance always come as a shock.

The presence of God to explain the way the world and humanity came about is comforting -it elevates man to a higher level. In the book of Genesis God says: "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."[7] How wonderful to think that man is equated to God and was born to rule the Earth and all the creatures on it. Darwin wipes all of this away and leaves us to face a cold reality: scientifically we are nothing more than a conglomeration of cells which just happened to evolve differently to other plants and creatures. How about that for a paradigm shift in perception?

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Finally, you can track all the stops and events of Darwin’s voyage of the Beagle in the infographic available here.

1. http://darwinbeagle.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/3rd-july-1832-comments-on-slavery-in.html

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumonoidea

3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20665232

4. http://www.faithology.com/biographies/charles-darwin

5. http://www.faithology.com/biographies/charles-darwin

6. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-big-question-how-important-was-charles-darwin-and-what-is-his-legacy-today-1216258.html

7. The Parallel Bible (Peabody MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009), p. 2.

Charles Darwin as a monkey in The London Sketch-book (1874).

Charles Darwin depicted as a monkey on a tree in La Petite Lune (1878).