I didn't take this either.

Not being keen on writing exams about numbers you can't even see, I gave calculus a pass in high school. Some folk, however, think its peachy. And, always on the hunt for a good "I told you so" even if I can't understand it, check out this gem.

From an article in today's CBC's Technology and Science page comes news that calculus and its basic concepts was not devised by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz but rather comes from medieval India.

Members of the Kerala school, a group of heavy weight thinkers, came up with the concept of infinite series around 1350, years before Newton even toyed with the notion. Founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama, he and his fellow scholars worked in astronomy as well and developed methods to calculate the positon of the moon as it moved across the sky and to track the planets.

As is often the case, colonialism and a general European superiority either ignored or supressed the work and discoveries going on outside of their sandbox. But it is possible that through trade with Asia these mathematical discoveries filtered their way to Newton's England.

Here's the link to that CBC article. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/08/14/calculus070814.html

Tommorow I'm back at African themed stuff again. I gotta have a stab at those nasty Belgians before I move on.

Rear Window

British director, Alfred Hitchcock, born this day, in 1899 at Leytonstone, London England. Writer, director, producer and actor with nearly 70 films and TV shows to his credit. As an actor he is almost always seen in passing; in silhouette or in the back of a scene, coming or going.

He started his career in film by designing opening titles and got his start directing in Germany between the wars. His first outing was a failure but moving back to England he directed "The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog" which earned him his first hit. Another first from his early career is one of the first talkies made in England "Blackmail".

For a complete film history and comprehensive list of what he did where and with what crew and actor see http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000033/

Scramble

Lets back up a bit and examine what went on in the mid to late 19th century in Africa. AND, I'm still looking for an explosion and a few wacked out leaders. Britain, Portugal, Belgium and France all had big claws into Africa.

The Potugese had been raiding the west coast for some time supplying themselves and others with slaves. The leading European industrial nations had turned to Africa as supplies of raw materials began to dwindle in their own countries. These tiny countries simply did not have the coal and metals left in their soil to fuel their new factories. And there was all that yummy coffee and cocoa.

Belgium and France seemed to have an inferiority complex going on as they added to their square miles of African ownership at every opportunity. During the closing years of the century it is estimated over 9 million square miles of Africa was colonized. To put it in perspective, all of Europe is 3.5 million square miles. France is 211, 000 while Belguim is just under 12,000!

Anyway, Germany, itself a player in the game, calls a conference in 1885 to put some organization into this crazy business. The term "New Imperialism" was coined to describe the period between the Franco Prussion War and the the First World War, 1871 t0 1914. A less sanitized and more accurate description is "The Scramble".

The Rumble

Did a bit of snooping and came up with a revised British army count, there were closer to 8000 soldiers. This really didn't matter that much against them, as I've noted above, the Dervishes, as they have been called, were not used to modern warfare, and lacked the dicipline to fight underground in any effective way. Unlike the modern Middle East conflicts where fighters adapt new to new methods and technology very quickly, tradition and trust in the old ways spelled their doom.


Sudanese tribesmen (Dervishes) led by the Khalifa Abdullah el Taashi attacked the British early on September 2nd. Rifle and cannon fire cut them down like hay. Witnesses saw few make it it close enough to the British lines to wack off any heads. The Mahdis had broken their forces into about 5 groups stationed at various opportunistic points. They held superiority in numbers and may have known that before the fight, making use of a good local spy network of sympathetic Sudanese. This is why perhaps they just went at the British and Egyptians head on instead of a slower, guerilla style battle.

General Horatio Kitchener led the British side and at first he too didn't make use of field intelligence. After the first fighting was over and he clearly was winning he mistakenly supposed that was it and headed after the remaining Dervishes. He was anxious to occupy Omdurman and found there were enemies behind every hill and tree.

The rear guard was led by Major General Hector MacDonald, "Fighting Mac". His was easily the tougher of the fights and most of the Britsh casualties came from his battles. Kitchener had good field communications set up and sent units back and forth throughout the battle to shore up sagging lines.

In a battle where over 10,000 were killed and 15,000 wounded( almost all Mahdist Sudanese) it stuns the mind to think that most of it took place before lunch.

Mahdi backgrounder

I won't indulge in the the obvious parallels to present day history in the making (but it sure is tempting). The Mahdists were led by Muhammad Ahmed, a Sudanese Muslim religious leader. He believed he was the "Mahdi", or leader. More specifically a redeermer of sorts charged with leading his followers in establishing a supreme Islamic state. Anyway, he was some cheesed at the colonization going on in North Africa and raised an army of equally pissed followers and started to make things very uncomfortable for the interlopers. A Jihad was declared and little by little, the Turks, French and finally the British felt the sting of fighting in a foreign land far from familiar surroundings.

In fact, he was victorious at the seige of Khartoum, where the British, led by General Charles Gordon, was left to perish by an apparent indifferent British government. The Mahdis held sway for a number of years in the Sudan after this embarassing loss and when Muhammad Ahmed died, his succesor, the Kalifha took over. The British were not going to sit around and have their arses kicked and their noses rubbed in it again.

This time the differences in modern and ancient warfare became obvious. Cannon and rifles easily ripped through the Mahdist ranks. On the British side there were about 10,000, with a further 17,000 or so regular Sudanese and Egyptian soldiers. The Mahdis numbered over 50,000. Shortly before 8am on September, 1898, the battle started.

Swirling Dervish part 2

In my never ending quest to bring you the partial truth, I have delved into the history of this skirmish in search of at least one good a) blunder or stinker move, and b) a jolly good explosion. If monks can blow the side off a monastary in the Middle Ages then anyone can. I'll be back tommorow with my finds.

Sneaky Pete

On this day in 1971, the Nixon administration reveals that the CIA is running a secret army in Laos. Apparently some 30,000 locals are signed up and trained to fight local communists. Wonder what column in the spreadsheet they put the nearly $300 million price tag under?