Kind gift from Trail of Tears
QUESTION Did a Native American tribe send money to Ireland during the 1840s potato famine?
In 1847, the Choctaw nation collected $170 — equivalent to more than $5,000 today — to help the sufferers of the Irish potato famine.
The gift’s generosity should be seen in the context of the hardship suffered by the Choctaw. They traditionally lived in what is now south-eastern Mississippi. In 1820, tribal leaders signed the Treaty of Doak’s Stand, ceding rich cotton lands in the delta region east of the Mississippi for 13 million acres in Oklahoma.
Most families refused to move until U.S. President Andrew Jackson pushed the Indian Removal Act through Congress in 1830. Choctaw leaders were forced to sign the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, ceding their remaining traditional lands and agreeing to move 600 miles West.
nearly 100,000 Choctaws had to take the Trail of Tears and Death, with more than 15,000 people perishing.
The Irish potato famine was the worst to befall any European country in the 19th century. Due to the potato crop blight in 1845, a million people died and at least a million emigrated.
In 1847, 27 Choctaw leaders met in the town of Skullyville in the Indian Territory to discuss the plight of the Irish. They may have heard about the famine from recently settled Irish immigrants or missionaries.
After the contribution was collected, the money was distributed by the Society of Friends, or Quakers, in Dublin.
The gift was commemorated by the Kindred Spirits sculpture, a 20 ft-high circle of nine stainless-steel eagle feathers at Bailick Park, Cork, in 2015.
Shelley Kelleher, Windsor, Berks.
QUESTION Why was fake birdsong played during TV golf coverage?
In 2000, sharp-eared twitchers noticed that the birdsong heard at various golf tournaments aired on CBS featured birds that weren’t indigenous to those areas.
A canyon wren, which lives west of
Texas, was used at the Buick Open in Warwick Hills, Michigan, which is 1,000 miles away; and a white-throated sparrow, found only in Canada during the summer, could be heard singing at the PGA Championship in Louisville, Kentucky, and the nEC Invitational in Ohio.
CBS spokeswoman Leslie Ann Wade admitted the birdsong had been piped in to create ambient sound for broadcast as a last resort after birdfeed placed near microphones at tournament sites had failed to attract local wildlife.
There were persistent rumours that the Masters tournament at the Augusta national in Georgia had done the same.
John Fitzpatrick of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology was brought in to investigate. He identified birdsong from tufted titmouse, Carolina chickadee, Carolina wren, eastern bluebird, northern mockingbird, northern cardinal and eastern towhee, all native to the area. CBS claims to have stopped the practice.
Greg Billingham, Bath, Somerset.
QUESTION Where does the phrase tommyrot come from?
THE words rot and tommyrot mean rubbish or nonsense. In the 19th century, a tommy was a simpleton and tomfoolery was foolish behaviour. Both words derived from the 17th-century tom-fool, a clown.
In earlier Middle English, Thom Foole was the personification of someone of low intelligence, often the buffoon or jester in a play. In poems from the 1600s, Tom o’Bedlam was a figure who suffered from or feigned mental illness.
In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Edgar is disguised as Poor Tom. This was probably a name chosen at random to represent the common man, just as we speak of Joe Public. An early reference comes from The Sporting Times of July 17, 1880: ‘Bill came to the conclusion that standing Jope champagne and at the same time having to wipe his slate was all tommyrot.’
Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex.
QUESTION Did any World War II military planes have diesel engines?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, Russia wasn’t the only country to operate dieselpowered aircraft in World War II. There were Jumo diesel and petrol variants of the German Junkers 86 bomber/ transport used in the Spanish Civil War.
Largely obsolete by the start of World War II, the Ju 86 had a resurgence as a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and nuisance bomber. Diesel-powered and with a pressurised cabin, they operated, often undetected, above 40,000 ft over Britain in 1941 and later over the USSR.
To increase performance, the Ju 86R variant was produced with an increased 105 ft wingspan and nitrous oxide injection to maintain flight at 47,000 ft. A further version planned to fly at 50,000 ft was not produced.
The RAF went to much effort to intercept these aircraft. The highest air combat over Britain and, indeed, in World War II, took place on September 12, 1942.
Pilot officer Prince Emanuel Galitzine, the great-grandson of Emperor Paul I of Russia, flying a special high-altitude Spitfire Mk IX, attacked the Ju 86R-2 flown by Obfw Horst Gotz. As Galitzine engaged at 42,000 ft, one cannon froze up, causing the aircraft to swerve. The fight continued up to 44,000 ft when he had to break off because he was short of fuel.
On return to base, Gotz discovered a single cannon hit in his wing. Facing this new RAF capability, the Ju 86s never crossed the Channel again. The pilots survived to meet after the war.
Ju 86s were used over Egypt, but due to the higher level of the tropopause — the boundary in the atmosphere between the troposphere and the stratosphere, which is higher in the tropics and lower over the poles — modified Spitfire Mk Vs could reach them. After the loss of two of three Ju 86s, ops were discontinued.
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