Jack the Ripper (#62, August 31st)

Background

In the mid-1800s, many immigrants were flooding into London, mainly into London's East End. Irish immigrants were coming from the West, and Jewish Immigrants were coming from the East. The sudden jump in population led to worsening of conditions in London. On April 3rd, 1888, the first of eleven "Whitechapel Murders" took place in London's East End.

Murders

During the investigation process of these eleven murders, at least five are assumed to have been committed by the same person, who became known as Jack the Ripper. On August 31st, 1888, the body of Mary Ann Nichols was found, with her throat cut and her abdomen ripped open. From that date to November 9th, 1888, there were four more murders, each similar to the one described above. Each murder victim was a poor women, and each body was mutilated, some even having organs missing. 

As the police investigated the Whitechapel murders, it was assumed that the Ripper was a man who lived in London and worked during the week. This was assumed because the Ripper struck around a certain area of town each time, yet only struck during the weekend. The police first investigated surgeons, butchers, other workers who handled knives, believing that people of these occupations were more likely to kill victims by cutting them with knives. Unfortunately, all the main suspects had alibis that checked out.

There were hundreds of letters sent to the police and the newspapers whose authors claimed to be Jack the Ripper. In the letter known as the "Dear Boss" letter, the author became the first to use the name Jack the Ripper, which became a world famous name. In another letter, known as the "From Hell" letter, the author sent half a kidney, which the author claimed was the kidney of Catherine Eddowes, who had had her kidney stolen during her murder by the Ripper. The author also claimed that he had cooked and eaten the other half of the kidney. Though most letters were immediately thrown out as hoaxes, the "From Hell" letter was kept, though it was never discovered whether the kidney was indeed Eddowes's.

As the murder investigation progressed, the media caught onto the story. Tax reforms had made printing newspapers much cheaper than before, and Jack the Ripper's story was one of the first to be widely distributed throughout the city and the country. 

The End

The true identity of Jack the Ripper was never discovered, though policemen investigated the murders until 1931. Jack the Ripper became a legend, a fairy tale to scare children into being good. The Ripper's appearance also helped to bring media attention to the poor living conditions of London's East End. Jack the Ripper is on our list for being one of the few people who remain famous (or infamous) without actually having a face to put with their name.

The Trans-Atlantic Balloon Flight (August 17th)

The use of hot air balloons for enjoyment has been around for hundreds of years, but hot air balloons, for the most part, have not been used for actual long-distance travel. This all changed in the year 1978.

In August of 1978, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman set out from Presque Isle, Maine in the hot air balloon, Double Eagle II. The plan was for the Double Eagle II to fly over Ireland, where Newman would hand glide out of the balloon over Shannon Airport while Abruzzo and Anderson flew the plane to France.

Unfortunately, the hand-glider was thrown overboard as ballast. The Double Eagle II still flew over Ireland, but was passed by so the group could make it to France. Authorities in France had closed Le Bourget Airfield to allow the balloon to land, but due to a lack of ballast, the pilots declined because the feared injuring anybody in the Paris suburbs if they flew too low.

On August 17th, 1978, the group landed in a barley field sixty miles from Paris. Once landed, the balloon was surrounded. The gondola was recovered, but the majority of the logs and charts were taken as souvenirs. The trip took 137 hours and six minutes to complete.

Typhoid Mary (#70)

Background

Mary Mallon was born on September 23rd, 1869 in Cookstown, County Tyrone in what is now Northern Ireland. Malon was what is known as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen which causes typhoid fever. Most likely, she was a survivor of a previous episode of typhoid fever, yet she did not get rid of the associated bacteria, known as Salmonella typhi. This meant that she could spread the disease through contact with food and water

Cooking and Investigation

Mallon moved to the United States in 1884. In 1900, she became a cook in the Mamaroneck, New York. Within two weeks of her employment, residents of the town had developed typhoid fever. In 1901, she moved to Manhattan in 1901 to work for a family, eventually all the family members for whom she worked with developed fevers and diarrhea. The laundress of the household died of the fever. Soon afterwards, Mallon went to work for a lawyer, and during this time, seven of the eight family members developed typhoid. In 1906, Mallon worked under four different families, and each family suffered from typohoid fever.

In the winter of 1906, a family hired a typhoid researcher named George Soper. He discovered that a cook was hired just weeks before the outbreak, and several weeks afterwards, she left. Soper believed there to be a connection to the cook, and when he discovered she was an single Irish woman of about forty, he was able to track Mallon to a recent outbreak of typhoid fever near a Park Avenue Penthouse. When Soper approached her, she refused to give urine and stool samples. Soper began a study on Mallon's previous work history, finding that Mallon had worked for no less than eight families that had an outbreak of typhoid fever during the same time period. 

Quarantine 

After Soper's research went out, the New York City Health Department sent Dr. Sara Baker to talk to Mallon. Mallon refused to go with Baker because she believed that she was being persecuted when she had done nothing wrong. Baker went back to Mallon several days later, this time with police officers, who took Mallon into custody. Mary attracted so much publicity, she became known as Typhoid Mary. 

When questioned, Mary said she rarely washed her hands when cooking, saying there was no need. Urine samples taken from Mallon showed that her gallbladder carried large amounts of typhoid salmonella. Mallon, however, refused to have her gallbladder extracted or give up her occupation, maintaining that she did not carry the disease at all.  Mallon was held in isolation for three years before being released by Dr. Eugene H. Porter, who said it was wrong to isolate disease carriers. She was, however, released on the promise that she would not return to her job as a cook.

Mallon was given a job as a laundress, but it paid less than cooking. Soon, Mallon decided to return to being a cook, but to avoid notice of both the public and the authorities, she changed her name to Mary Brown. For five more years, she served as a cook in a number of kitchens, followed by typhoid fever. She changed jobs quickly, though, and Dr. Soper was unable to find her. In 1915, a serious epidemic of typhoid erupted among the staff of the Sloane Hospital for Women. Two cases proved fatal. When a cook matching Mallon's description suddenly disappeared, the police were able to track her to an estate on Long Island. 

The End

Mallon was arrested and spent the rest of her life in quarantine. She was frequently interviewed by journalists, but none were allowed to even accept a glass of water from her. Eventually, she was allowed to work as a technician in the laboratory close by. In 1932,  Mallon was paralyzed due to a strok, and on November 11, 1938, she died of pneumonia. Typhoid Mary is on our list of people because she was the first person in the United States to be identified as an asymptotic carrier of typhoid fever.

Anne Bonny & Mary Read (#81 & #80)

Anne Bonny

Anne Bonny

Anne Bonny was born on March 8, 1702. She was born in Ireland, but her family moved to the Americas soon after she was born. Her father became successful in the merchant business and she could have gotten a good marriage, though she chose to marry a poor sailor named James Bonny between the years 1714 and 1718. When her father disowned her, Anne and James moved to Nassau, in the Bahamas, where James worked for the governor. In the Bahamas, Anne met John Rackham, or Calico Jack. Anne and Jack became lovers, having a child named Cunningham together. Anne divorced her husband, left Cunningham, and ran off with Rackham to live a pirate's life.

Mary Read

Mary Read

Mary Read was born in England in the late 1600s. She was the illegitimate daughter of the widow of a sea captain. To receive financial support from her paternal grandmother, Anne was dressed as a boy, pretending to be her older, legitimate brother. Read continued to dress as a boy to find work, becoming a footboy, and later, a soldier. Read, still in disguise, fought in the British military during the Nine Years War against the French. During the War, she fell in love with a Flemish soldier. The two got married and bought an inn in the Netherlands. When her husband died, Read again dressed as a man and wen on board a ship to the West Indies. Pirates captured her ship, though she took King's pardon in 1718 to become a privateer. 

Bonny and Read

In 1720, after she joined a mutiny with her crew, Mary Read joined Calico Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny on the pirate ship Revenge. Because she was still dressed as a man, Anne Bonny began to take a liking towards Read, so Read revealed that she was a woman to both Rackham and Bonny. Rackham allowed Read to stay aboard as a woman, and both Bonny and Read were said to have been capable fighters in combat. Though they were women, both Bonny and Read made it on to The Boston News-Letters's Wanted Pirates list. 

The End

In October of 1720, Jonathan Barnet, a privateer from Jamaica, attacked the Revenge. Most of the pirates aboard Rackham's ship were either drunk or asleep, though four pirates, including Rackham, Bonny, and Read, were able to hold off Barnet's men for some time. They were eventually captured and imprisoned. Rackham was executed, but both Read and Bonny had their executions postponed because both were pregnant. In 1721, Mary Read died of a fever in prison, supposedly during childbirth. Anne Bonny has no record of release or execution, because (most likely) her father smuggled her out to South Carolina, where she gave birth to Rackham's second child, remarried, and had ten more children. She died at the age of 80 on April 22, 1782. Bonny and Read are on this list because both were pirates (very good pirates), but both were women, breaking the usual stereotype. Both proved that women were as capable as men at privateering and pirating in a time when women were viewed as inferior.

Donuts for Your Viewing Pleasure

Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart

Today in History:

Today (May 21) was the day that both Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart crossed the Atlantic. It was in 1927, at 7:52am on May 20th that Charles Lindbergh went down Roosevelt Field in The Spirit of St. Louis, a monoplane only 28 feet long. After leaving Long Island, Lindbergh went north to Cape Cod and Nova Scotia, crossing the Atlantic over the night. After sighting a small fishing boat, he knew he was reaching Europe, and soon flew over England, Ireland, and soon afterward, on May 21st, landed at the Le Bourget Airport, surrounded by 10,000 onlookers, who mobbed his airplane. Lindbergh had flown 3,610 miles in 34 hours.The next day, in front of the American Embassy in Paris, President Gaston Doumerque of France gave Lindbergh the Legion of Honour. After coming back to the U.S. (by boat) President Calvin Coolidge of the United States presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross. When Lindbergh arrived in New York, the financial market closed for 'Lindbergh Day', and a parade with 10,000 soldiers and sailors went through the city. On May 21st in 1932, exactly 5 years after Lindbergh arrived in Paris, the American, Amelia Earhart, landed in a field near Londonderry, Northern Ireland after flying 15 hours. She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Earhart recieved the National Geographic Society gold medal from President Herbert Hoover of the United States and the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, and soon became an early feminist icon. Both Lindbergh and Earhart changed history by what they did on May 21st.

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By W.B. Marsh and Bruce Carrick