title: Cottingley Fairies

text: The photographs became public in mid-1919, after Elsie's mother attended a meeting of the Theosophical Society in Bradford. The lecture that evening was on "fairy life", and at the end of the meeting Polly Wright showed the two fairy photographs taken by her daughter and niece to the speaker. As a result, the photographs were displayed at the society's annual conference in Harrogate, held a few months later. There they came to the attention of a leading member of the society, Edward Gardner. One of the central beliefs of theosophy is that humanity is undergoing a cycle of evolution, towards increasing "perfection", and Gardner recognised the potential significance of the photographs for the movement:


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Gardner sent the prints along with the original glass-plate negatives to Harold Snelling, a photography expert. Snelling's opinion was that "the two negatives are entirely genuine, unfaked photographs ... [with] no trace whatsoever of studio work involving card or paper models". He did not go so far as to say that the photographs showed fairies, stating only that "these are straight forward photographs of whatever was in front of the camera at the time". Gardner had the prints "clarified" by Snelling, and new negatives produced, "more conducive to printing", for use in the illustrated lectures he gave around the UK. Snelling supplied the photographic prints which were available for sale at Gardner's lectures.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Author and prominent spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle learned of the photographs from the editor of the spiritualist publication "Light". Doyle had been commissioned by "The Strand Magazine" to write an article on fairies for their Christmas issue, and the fairy photographs "must have seemed like a godsend" according to broadcaster and historian Magnus Magnusson. Doyle contacted Gardner in June 1920 to determine the background to the photographs, and wrote to Elsie and her father to request permission from the latter to use the prints in his article. Arthur Wright was "obviously impressed" that Doyle was involved, and gave his permission for publication, but he refused payment on the grounds that, if genuine, the images should not be "soiled" by money.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Gardner and Doyle sought a second expert opinion from the photographic company Kodak. Several of the company's technicians examined the enhanced prints, and although they agreed with Snelling that the pictures "showed no signs of being faked", they concluded that "this could not be taken as conclusive evidence ... that they were authentic photographs of fairies". Kodak declined to issue a certificate of authenticity. Gardner believed that the Kodak technicians might not have examined the photographs entirely objectively, observing that one had commented "after all, as fairies couldn't be true, the photographs must have been faked somehow". The prints were also examined by another photographic company, Ilford, who reported unequivocally that there was "some evidence of faking". Gardner and Doyle, perhaps rather optimistically, interpreted the results of the three expert evaluations as two in favour of the photographs' authenticity and one against.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Doyle also showed the photographs to the physicist and pioneering psychical researcher Sir Oliver Lodge, who believed the photographs to be fake. He suggested that a troupe of dancers had masqueraded as fairies, and expressed doubt as to their "distinctly 'Parisienne hairstyles.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: On October 4, 2018 the first two of the photographs, "Alice and the Fairies" and "Iris and the Gnome," were to be sold by Dominic Winter Auctioneers, in Gloucestershire. The prints, suspected to have been made in 1920 to sell at theosophical lectures, were expected to bring £700–£1000 each. As it turned out, 'Iris with the Gnome' sold for a hammer price of £5,400 (plus 24% buyer's premium incl. VAT), while 'Alice and the Fairies' sold for a hammer price of £15,000 (plus 24% buyer's premium incl. VAT).


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Doyle was preoccupied with organising an imminent lecture tour of Australia, and in July 1920, sent Gardner to meet the Wright family. By this point, Frances was living with her parents in Scarborough, but Elsie's father told Gardner that he had been so certain the photographs were fakes that while the girls were away he searched their bedroom and the area around the beck (stream), looking for scraps of pictures or cutouts, but found nothing "incriminating".


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Gardner believed the Wright family to be honest and respectable. To place the matter of the photographs' authenticity beyond doubt, he returned to Cottingley at the end of July with two W. Butcher & Sons Cameo folding plate cameras and 24 secretly marked photographic plates. Frances was invited to stay with the Wright family during the school summer holiday so that she and Elsie could take more pictures of the fairies. Gardner described his briefing in his 1945 "Fairies: A Book of Real Fairies":


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Until 19 August the weather was unsuitable for photography. Because Frances and Elsie insisted that the fairies would not show themselves if others were watching, Elsie's mother was persuaded to visit her sister's for tea, leaving the girls alone. In her absence the girls took several photographs, two of which appeared to show fairies. In the first, "Frances and the Leaping Fairy", Frances is shown in profile with a winged fairy close by her nose. The second, "Fairy offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie", shows a fairy either hovering or tiptoeing on a branch, and offering Elsie a flower. Two days later the girls took the last picture, "Fairies and Their Sun-Bath".


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: The plates were packed in cotton wool and returned to Gardner in London, who sent an "ecstatic" telegram to Doyle, by then in Melbourne. Doyle wrote back:


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Doyle's article in the December 1920 issue of "The Strand" contained two higher-resolution prints of the 1917 photographs, and sold out within days of publication. To protect the girls' anonymity, Frances and Elsie were called Alice and Iris respectively, and the Wright family was referred to as the "Carpenters". An enthusiastic and committed spiritualist, Doyle hoped that if the photographs convinced the public of the existence of fairies then they might more readily accept other psychic phenomena. He ended his article with the words:


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Early press coverage was "mixed", generally a combination of "embarrassment and puzzlement". The historical novelist and poet Maurice Hewlett published a series of articles in the literary journal "John O' London's Weekly", in which he concluded: "And knowing children, and knowing that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has legs, I decide that the Miss Carpenters have pulled one of them." The Sydney newspaper "Truth" on 5 January 1921 expressed a similar view; "For the true explanation of these fairy photographs what is wanted is not a knowledge of occult phenomena but a knowledge of children." Some public figures were more sympathetic. Margaret McMillan, the educational and social reformer, wrote: "How wonderful that to these dear children such a wonderful gift has been vouchsafed." The novelist Henry De Vere Stacpoole decided to take the fairy photographs and the girls at face value. In a letter to Gardner he wrote: "Look at Alice's [Frances'] face. Look at Iris's [Elsie's] face. There is an extraordinary thing called Truth which has 10 million faces and forms – it is God's currency and the cleverest coiner or forger can't imitate it."


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Major John Hall-Edwards, a keen photographer and pioneer of medical X-ray treatments in Britain, was a particularly vigorous critic:


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Doyle used the later photographs in 1921 to illustrate a second article in "The Strand", in which he described other accounts of fairy sightings. The article formed the foundation for his 1922 book "The Coming of the Fairies". As before, the photographs were received with mixed credulity. Sceptics noted that the fairies "looked suspiciously like the traditional fairies of nursery tales" and that they had "very fashionable hairstyles".


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Gardner made a final visit to Cottingley in August 1921. He again brought cameras and photographic plates for Frances and Elsie, but was accompanied by the occultist Geoffrey Hodson. Although neither of the girls claimed to see any fairies, and there were no more photographs, "on the contrary, he [Hodson] saw them [fairies] everywhere" and wrote voluminous notes on his observations.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: By now Elsie and Frances were tired of the whole fairy business. Years later Elsie looked at a photograph of herself and Frances taken with Hodson and said: "Look at that, fed up with fairies." Both Elsie and Frances later admitted that they "played along" with Hodson "out of mischief", and that they considered him "a fake".


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Public interest in the Cottingley Fairies gradually subsided after 1921. Elsie and Frances eventually married husbands and lived abroad for many years. In 1966, a reporter from the "Daily Express" newspaper traced Elsie, who was by then back in England. She admitted in an interview given that year that the fairies might have been "figments of my imagination", but left open the possibility she believed that she had somehow managed to photograph her thoughts. The media subsequently became interested in Frances and Elsie's photographs once again. BBC television's "Nationwide" programme investigated the case in 1971, but Elsie stuck to her story: "I've told you that they're photographs of figments of our imagination, and that's what I'm sticking to".


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Elsie and Frances were interviewed by journalist Austin Mitchell in September 1976, for a programme broadcast on Yorkshire Television. When pressed, both women agreed that "a rational person doesn't see fairies", but they denied having fabricated the photographs. In 1978 the magician and scientific sceptic James Randi and a team from the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal examined the photographs, using a "computer enhancement process". They concluded that the photographs were fakes, and that strings could be seen supporting the fairies. Geoffrey Crawley, editor of the "British Journal of Photography", undertook a "major scientific investigation of the photographs and the events surrounding them", published between 1982 and 1983, "the first major postwar analysis of the affair". He also concluded that the pictures were fakes.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: In 1983, the cousins admitted in an article published in the magazine "The Unexplained" that the photographs had been faked, although both maintained that they really had seen fairies. Elsie had copied illustrations of dancing girls from a popular children's book of the time, "Princess Mary's Gift Book", published in 1914, and drew wings on them. They said they had then cut out the cardboard figures and supported them with hatpins, disposing of their props in the beck once the photograph had been taken. But the cousins disagreed about the fifth and final photograph, which Doyle in his "The Coming of the Fairies" described in this way:


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Elsie maintained it was a fake, just like all the others, but Frances insisted that it was genuine. In an interview given in the early 1980s Frances said:


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Both Frances and Elsie claimed to have taken the fifth photograph. In a letter published in "The Times" newspaper on 9 April 1983, Geoffrey Crawley explained the discrepancy by suggesting that the photograph was "an unintended double exposure of fairy cutouts in the grass", and thus "both ladies can be quite sincere in believing that they each took it".


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: In a 1985 interview on Yorkshire Television's "Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers", Elsie said that she and Frances were too embarrassed to admit the truth after fooling Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes: "Two village kids and a brilliant man like Conan Doyle – well, we could only keep quiet." In the same interview Frances said: "I never even thought of it as being a fraud – it was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun and I can't understand to this day why they were taken in – they wanted to be taken in."


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Frances died in 1986, and Elsie in 1988. Prints of their photographs of the fairies, along with a few other items including a first edition of Doyle's book "The Coming of the Fairies", were sold at auction in London for £21,620 in 1998. That same year, Geoffrey Crawley sold his Cottingley Fairy material to the National Museum of Film, Photography and Television in Bradford (now the National Science and Media Museum), where it is on display. The collection included prints of the photographs, two of the cameras used by the girls, watercolours of fairies painted by Elsie, and a nine-page letter from Elsie admitting to the hoax.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: The glass photographic plates were bought for £6,000 by an unnamed buyer at a London auction held in 2001.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: Frances's daughter, Christine Lynch, appeared in an episode of the television programme "Antiques Roadshow" in Belfast, broadcast on BBC One in January 2009, with the photographs and one of the cameras given to the girls by Doyle. Christine told the expert, Paul Atterbury, that she believed, as her mother had done, that the fairies in the fifth photograph were genuine. Atterbury estimated the value of the items at between £25,000 and £30,000. The first edition of Frances's memoirs was published a few months later, under the title "Reflections on the Cottingley Fairies". The book contains correspondence, sometimes "bitter", between Elsie and Frances. In one letter, dated 1983, Frances wrote:


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: The 1997 films "" and "Photographing Fairies" were inspired by the events surrounding the Cottingley Fairies. The photographs were parodied in a 1994 book written by Terry Jones and Brian Froud, "Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book". In A. J. Elwood's 2021 novel, "The Cottingley Cuckoo", a series of letters were written soon after the Cottingley fairy photographs were published claiming further sightings of fairies and proof of their existence.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: In 2017 a further two fairy photographs were presented as evidence that the girls' parents were part of the conspiracy. Dating from 1917 and 1918, both photographs are poorly executed copies of two of the original fairy photographs. One was published in 1918 in "The Sphere" newspaper, which was before the originals had been seen by anyone outside the girls' immediate family.


title: Cottingley Fairies

text: In 2019, a print of the first of the five photographs sold for £1,050. A print of the second photograph was also put up for sale but failed to sell as it did not meet its £500 reserve price. The photographs previously belonged to the Reverend George Vale Owen.


title: William Asher

text: William Milton Asher (August 8, 1921 – July 16, 2012) was an American television and film producer, film director, and screenwriter. He was one of the most prolific early television directors, producing or directing over two dozen series.


title: William Asher

text: With television in its infancy, Asher introduced the sitcom "Our Miss Brooks", which was adapted from a radio show. He began directing "I Love Lucy" by 1952. As a result of his early success, Asher was considered an "early wunderkind of TV-land," and was hyperbolically credited in one magazine article with "inventing" the sitcom. In 1964, he began to direct episodes of "Bewitched", which starred his wife Elizabeth Montgomery. He produced the series from the fourth season.


title: William Asher

text: Asher was nominated for an Emmy Award four times, winning once for directing "Bewitched" in 1966. He was also nominated for the DGA Award in 1951 for "I Love Lucy".


title: William Asher

text: Asher was born in New York City to stage actress Lillian Bonner and producer Ephraim M. Asher (1887–1937), whose movie credits were mostly as an associate producer. His sister, Betty Asher, was an MGM publicist for Judy Garland. His father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic. Asher's family moved to Los Angeles when he was around 3, where he often accompanied his father to the movie studio.


title: William Asher

text: Asher's parents divorced when he was 11, resulting in a return to New York with his mother. He later recalled that this period of his life was filled with turmoil, because his mother was an abusive alcoholic. As a result of having to live in New York with his mother, he dropped out of school and, after working in the mailroom at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, he joined the Army in 1941. He served in the Army Signal Corps for four years, stationed in Astoria, Queens New York City as a unit photographer.


title: William Asher

text: Asher returned to California to direct "Leather Gloves" (1948), a low-budget film. He eventually gravitated to television (then a new medium), and gained a job writing short story "fillers" for various programs, which evolved into a series which was titled "Little Theatre." From this work, he gained a contract with Columbia Pictures to work on a film musical for Harry Cohn.


title: William Asher

text: From CBS Studios, Asher received an offer to direct "Our Miss Brooks", starring Eve Arden, a television version of the radio show. In 1952, Desi Arnaz asked Asher to direct an episode of his series "I Love Lucy"; by that show's end in 1957, Asher had directed 110 of the series' 179 episodes, Asher later commented that even though the creators knew the show was good, they did not believe it would become an American icon. "When we did the show, we thought, 'That's it, we're done with it.' We never dreamed it would last this long. Lucille Ball, obviously, was one of TV's true pioneers."


title: William Asher

text: Asher was considered an "early wunderkind of TV-land, blazing a path in the new medium" of television. Writer and producer William Froug described Asher as a "hyphenate of a different stripe, a director-producer", commenting that he was one of many "restless Hollywood professionals who, like nomads, drifted from job to job, always delivering competent, if not inspired work".


title: William Asher

text: In addition to "Our Miss Brooks" and "I Love Lucy", Asher directed episodes of "The Colgate Comedy Hour", "Make Room for Daddy", "The Twilight Zone" (1959 TV series), "The Patty Duke Show", "Gidget", "The Dukes of Hazzard", and "Alice". Asher and Montgomery befriended President John F. Kennedy, and, together with Frank Sinatra, planned Kennedy's 1961 inaugural ceremony.


title: William Asher

text: Asher's best-known work was "Bewitched", which he directed regularly over its entire eight-year run, although he was only credited as producer for its last five seasons. At that time, he was married to the show's star Elizabeth Montgomery. They divorced soon after the series' cancellation in 1972. In 1986, he attempted to return to television, this time, with Fred Whitehead, Orion Television executive to set up Asher/Whitehead Productions, and the only TV project to came out was "Kay O'Brien", which was canned after only one season on the air.


title: William Asher

text: Asher also directed a number of theatrical release films, including "Beach Party", "Muscle Beach Party", "Bikini Beach", "Beach Blanket Bingo", and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini", for all of which he was also a co-writer. Critic Wheeler Winston Dixon later suggested that the Beach Party films were not only "visions of paradise" for the audience, but also for Asher, who used them "to create a fantasy world to replace his own troubled childhood".


title: William Asher

text: In 1951, Asher married Danny Sue Nolan, with whom he had two children; the couple divorced in 1961. Asher then married Elizabeth Montgomery in 1963, just before "Bewitched" began its run. They had three children and divorced in 1973. His third marriage was to Joyce Bulifant and it lasted from 1976 to 1993. He adopted her son, actor John Mallory Asher. This marriage also ended in divorce. In his later years, Asher lived in Palm Desert, California, with Meredith Coffin Asher, his fourth and final wife.


title: William Asher

text: Asher counted Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. as his friends, and sometimes, he caroused with them in Las Vegas, flying there from Hollywood in Sinatra's plane, and then flying back in order to be at work at the studio at 5 AM.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: On 17 December 1967, Harold Holt, the Prime Minister of Australia, disappeared while swimming in the sea near Portsea, Victoria. An enormous search operation was mounted in and around Cheviot Beach, but his body was never recovered. Holt was presumed to have died, and his memorial service five days later was attended by many world leaders. It is generally agreed that his disappearance was a simple case of an accidental drowning, but a number of conspiracy theories surfaced, most famously the suggestion that he was a spy from the People's Republic of China and had been collected by a Chinese submarine. Holt was the third Australian prime minister to die in office, after Joseph Lyons in 1939 and John Curtin in 1945. He was initially replaced in a caretaker capacity by John McEwen, and then by John Gorton following a Liberal Party leadership election. Holt's death has entered Australian folklore, and was commemorated by, among other things, the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Harold Holt became Prime Minister of Australia in January 1966, following the retirement of Sir Robert Menzies. He was a career politician, entering parliament at the age of 27 and becoming a government minister at the age of 31. As with Menzies, Holt refused a security detail upon taking office, considering it unnecessary and potentially alienating to the general public. His stance changed after two incidents in mid-1966 – a window in his office was shattered by a sniper, and then an assassination attempt was made on Arthur Calwell, the Leader of the Opposition. Holt grudgingly accepted a single bodyguard for his official duties, but refused any protection while on holiday, regarding it as a violation of his privacy. His wife Zara later suggested that this was so he could hide his extramarital affairs.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Holt was a keen outdoorsman and had beach houses at Portsea, Victoria, and Bingil Bay, Queensland. He was introduced to spearfishing in 1954, and it soon became his preferred vacation activity. Holt wore a wetsuit so he could fish year round, and preferred either skin diving or snorkelling as he found air tanks burdensome and inauthentic. Once he had speared a fish, he would unzip his suit and place it inside (still bleeding), allowing him to continue fishing. According to his companions, Holt had "incredible powers of endurance underwater", and sometimes kept himself amused during parliamentary debates by seeing how long he could hold his breath. Although he could tread water for long periods, he was not a strong surface swimmer.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Several of Holt's friends confronted him about the dangers of his hobby, including his press secretary, Tony Eggleton, to whom Holt responded, "Look Tony, what are the odds of a prime minister being drowned or taken by a shark?" On 20 May 1967, Holt had a close call while diving at Cheviot Beach on the Mornington Peninsula, where he became distressed and called for help. Pulled ashore by his diving companions, he remained conscious, but turned purple and vomited a large amount of seawater. Holt attributed the incident to a leaking snorkel, and supposedly remarked, "That's the closest I have ever been to drowning in my life!" A few months later, on 5 August, which was also his 59th birthday, he was spearfishing at Dunk Island on the Great Barrier Reef. He spent 25 minutes chasing a large coral trout, but eventually had to abandon the pursuit due to extreme shortness of breath.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Holt had been in reasonably good health throughout his life, although he had a family history of premature death – his father had died at the age of 59 and his older brother at the age of 57. He suffered a severe concussion in a road accident in November 1955, in which the driver of his ministerial car was killed. In September 1967, Holt began treatment for a painful shoulder injury that he had originally suffered playing football in his youth; he was prescribed painkillers and twice-weekly physiotherapy. A few days before his death, he had been briefly examined by his personal physician, Marcus Faunce, who advised him to avoid over-exerting himself and to cut back on swimming and tennis. "The Prime Minister is Missing", a 2008 docudrama, suggested that Holt's judgment on the weekend of his death had been clouded by his medication, in combination with work-related tiredness and stress. Morphine was named as the drug that he had been prescribed, although "no direct evidence" indicated that he had taken any on the day of his death.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Holt's final cabinet meeting of 1967 began late on Thursday, 14 December, and ended early the following morning. He returned to The Lodge for a few hours of sleep, and then returned to his Parliament House office at 8:30 am to finalise a press release. At 11 am, Holt left Parliament House and was driven to RAAF Base Fairbairn, where he boarded a military jet to Melbourne. His wife Zara stayed in Canberra to finalise preparations for the annual Christmas party. On arriving in Melbourne, Holt and his personal secretary, Patricia De Lacy, were driven to his constituency office. After dictating a few letters, he went on to his home at St Georges Road, Toorak. There, he informed his housekeeper, Edith "Tiny" Lawless, that he would be spending the weekend at his beach house. He also carried with him a letter from the Liberal Party whip expressing concern at the performance of the government.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Holt drove down to Portsea in his red Pontiac Parisienne. He stopped in Sorrento on the way, where he ran into his neighbour, Marjorie Gillespie, and received an invitation to evening drinks. He spent about an hour with Gillespie and her husband Winton, and then had dinner with Lawless, who had driven down separately with Holt's clothes and provisions for the weekend. On Saturday, 16 December, Holt rose early and ate a light breakfast. He did some gardening, and made phone calls to Eggleton and his stepson Nicholas, inviting the latter down to Portsea. Holt played tennis in the afternoon, and then spent some time with Nicholas and his family. In the evening, he attended a neighbour's cocktail party for about an hour, and then returned home to host a dinner party with about a dozen guests.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Holt again rose early on Sunday, 17 December, and after breakfast telephoned his wife. He drove to the local general store mid-morning, where he bought insect repellent, peanuts, and the weekend newspapers. One of the headlines in "The Australian" was "PM advised to swim less", which detailed the latest advice from Holt's doctor, but whether Holt bought or read that particular paper is unclear. On returning home, Holt made plans for the rest of the day, which included a visit to Point Nepean, a barbecue lunch, and an afternoon spearfishing trip. At 11:15 am, four others and he set out for Point Nepean, where they hoped to watch solo circumnavigator Alec Rose pass through The Rip into Port Phillip Bay. He was accompanied by Marjorie Gillespie, her daughter Vyner, and two family friends of the Gillespies, Martin Simpson and Alan Stewart. It was a hot day, and Rose's yacht was barely visible, so the group only stayed a short while before leaving.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: On the drive back to Portsea, Holt suggested that the group stop at Cheviot Beach for a swim – it was about 12:15 pm, and he wanted to cool down and work up an appetite before lunch. Holt knew the area well and had swum there many times before, in 1960 even salvaging a porthole from the SS "Cheviot", the shipwreck that had given the beach its name. Holt did not hesitate in entering the water, despite a large swell and visible currents and eddies. Stewart was the only other swimmer, as the others considered it unsafe. Stewart stayed close to shore, and even in the shallows felt a strong undertow. However, Holt swam into deeper water and was dragged out to sea. The others called out to him, but he did not raise his arms or cry for help. He soon slipped under the waves and out of sight, in a manner which Marjorie Gillespie described as "like a leaf being taken out [...] so quick and final".


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Following Holt's disappearance, Stewart drove to the nearby Officer Cadet School Portsea, an Australian Army training facility. The school was virtually deserted, as most personnel were on annual leave, but the Victoria Police were contacted and initiated what became "one of the largest search operations in Australian history". The search for Holt's body began at 1:30 pm, when three amateur divers entered the water and found it too rough. They were soon joined by helicopters, watercraft, police divers, and two naval diving teams. Little progress was made, though, due to the rough conditions and limited equipment available. By the end of the day, more than 190 personnel were involved, with operations based out of the Officer Cadet School; this number eventually increased to more than 340.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: The search resumed just before 5:00 am on 18 December, despite strong wind, heavy seas, and occasional rain. Working in shifts, 50 divers focused on the rock pools and ledges near where Holt had last been sighted. They were forced to free dive to minimise injury, as they were continuously being driven against the nearby cliff face. Due to a change in the tide, the search was suspended at 8:00 am and did not resume until midafternoon. The following day's operations were again hampered by the weather. Conditions improved on Wednesday, 20 December, but by the following day, most personnel were being withdrawn. The search for Holt's body was officially called off on 5 January 1968, although it had been gradually scaled back to the point where it consisted only of a daily beach patrol. Lieutenant-Commander Phil Hawke, who led the HMAS "Lonsdale" diving team, later stated, "any chance of finding the prime minister was lost by the Sunday night".


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Rumours of Holt's disappearance reached the media just over an hour after it occurred, and the first conclusive report was made at about 1:45 pm on Melbourne radio station 3DB. Zara Holt was told of her husband's disappearance by Peter Bailey, one of his secretaries.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: A memorial service for Holt was held on 22 December, at St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne. It was led by Tom Thomas, the Dean of Melbourne, with a single eulogy given by Philip Strong, the Anglican Primate of Australia. Due to the absence of a body, no prayers of committal were made. Within the cathedral were 2,000 attendees, with many thousands more lining the nearby streets and listening through a public-address system. Thirty newspaper reporters were given seats, but only one official photographer was allowed, as was a single movie camera at the back of the building.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, and Western Samoa sent their foreign ministers as representatives, while numerous other countries sent their ambassadors. After the service, there was a formal reception at Government House, Melbourne.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: John McEwen, the leader of the Country Party and "de facto" deputy prime minister, was at his farm in Stanhope, Victoria, when he was informed of Holt's disappearance. He immediately made his way to Canberra, and on the evening of 17 December, met with Lord Casey, the governor-general, at Yarralumla. Casey had already conferred with Chief Justice Garfield Barwick and Attorney-General Nigel Bowen, and agreed with McEwen that he should be commissioned to form a caretaker government while the Liberal Party elected a new leader. This was based on the precedent set in 1939, when Earle Page was made temporary prime minister after the death of Joseph Lyons. Casey issued a statement announcing his intentions the following day, and McEwen was sworn in as prime minister on the afternoon of Tuesday, 19 December.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Discussions about who would succeed Holt as leader of the Liberal Party began as soon as his disappearance became general knowledge. The situation was complicated by McEwen publicly announcing that the Country Party would leave the coalition if the Liberals selected Treasurer William McMahon (the party's deputy leader). The leadership election was not held until 9 January 1968, the 23rd day after the disappearance. The four candidates were John Gorton, Paul Hasluck, Billy Snedden, and Les Bury. Gorton was elected over Hasluck on the second ballot, and was sworn in as prime minister the following day – the first senator to hold the office. In line with the constitutional convention that the prime minister must sit in the House of Representatives, he resigned from the Senate on 1 February to contest the by-election caused by Holt's death, which was held on 24 February. He won an easy victory, and was sworn into the House on 12 March.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: According to his biographer, Tom Frame, "there could never realistically be much doubt that Harold Holt drowned – he was simply one of the number of ordinary Australians who drown each year through poor judgment or bad luck." Holt likely misjudged his own swimming ability and the roughness of the conditions, and was simply overcome by exhaustion. Alternatively, he may have suffered a heart attack, been struck by driftwood, stung by jellyfish, or attacked by a shark. Holt's body was probably either trapped below the surface or washed out to sea on the ebb tide. It was not unusual for this to occur – three men had drowned at a beach in Rye a few years earlier, with one body disappearing and the other two ending up in different places. Sir Robert Southey, a senior figure in the Liberal Party's organisational wing, said of the events in a 1994 interview:


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Some have suggested that Holt entered the water primarily to impress Marjorie Gillespie, with whom he was rumoured to be having an affair. Zara believed that this was the case, and in 1988, Gillespie publicly identified herself as Holt's lover. In an earlier interview, though, she had been specifically asked if their relationship was sexual in nature, and did not characterise it as such.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: The Victoria Police launched a formal investigation into Holt's disappearance the day after it occurred. Jack Ford, a former homicide detective, was chosen to head the investigation, with Aubrey Jackson of the Commonwealth Police assisting. The resulting police report was released on 5 January 1968, but did not record any definitive findings due to a lack of evidence. Senior pathologist James McNamara was consulted about what might have happened to Holt's body, and suggested that it may have been trapped by kelp and then consumed by sea creatures (specifically sharks, crayfish, and/or sea lice). If that were the case, "the body would have been reduced to a skeleton in a period as short as 24 to 48 hours". Some of those involved in the investigation later reported that certain relevant information had been deliberately omitted from the final report – for instance, Simpson's statement that Holt had had several cans of beer in his bag.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: The federal government declined to conduct its own inquiry, as the disappearance was considered uncontroversial and his family did not want one. Until 1985, state law did not allow for the Victorian Coroners Court to conduct an inquest without the presence of a body. In August 2003, State Coroner Graeme Johnstone announced that his office had compiled a list of 103 cold cases involving suspected drownings where bodies were never recovered. By November 2004, 82 cases had been deemed suitable for coronial inquests, including that of Holt. Johnstone opened a formal inquest in August 2005, and handed down his findings early the following month. He concluded that, "Mr Holt took an unnecessary risk and drowned in rough water off Cheviot Beach [...] there is nothing of significance in any of the material gathered that would indicate anything other than drowning occurred". Johnstone also criticised the decision not to hold a governmental inquiry at the time of the disappearance, suggesting that it "may have avoided the development of some of the unsubstantiated rumours and unusual theories".


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Some have advanced the view that Holt's death was not accidental, but rather that he chose to end his own life. Supporters of this theory claim that Holt was depressed and mentally unstable, and killed himself because he thought his political career was in jeopardy. Those who reject it point to his "joie de vivre" and commitment to his family, as well as the plans he had made for the coming year. The 1968 police report specifically ruled out suicide, as Holt had followed "an ordinary domestic pattern" in the days before his disappearance, and suicides in front of witnesses were considered atypical.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: "Who Killed Harold Holt?", a Nine Network television documentary that aired in 2007, gave particular credence to the suicide theory, as did an article in "The Bulletin" published the same year. In response, Holt's son Sam gave an interview in which he said "there's no mystery, in essence there's no credibility at all; no one in our family believes it"; Zara had earlier said that her husband was "too selfish" to commit suicide. Two of Holt's former colleagues, Tony Eggleton and Malcolm Fraser, were also interviewed around the same time, and both rejected any suggestion of suicide; Alick Downer and James Killen had expressed similar sentiments in their memoirs. In contrast, Edward St John believed suicide was plausible, suggesting that Holt's death "appeared to be an act of a man who either wanted to die or didn't much care whether he lived or died". Senior public servant Sir Lenox Hewitt recalled in a 1994 interview that Holt had seemed depressed in the period before his death. Peter Butt, who produced the 2008 docudrama "The Prime Minister is Missing", observed, "no one thought it was in his character and all those who know him dismiss the idea completely".


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Holt's disappearance spawned numerous conspiracy theories, most of which involve claims of a cover-up at the highest level of government. A 1968 story in the "Sunday Observer" claimed that Holt had been assassinated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, supposedly because he intended to pull Australia out of Vietnam. Also, suggestions were made that Holt had been killed by the North Vietnamese (after being incapacitated by a nerve agent), or that he had faked his own death to be with a lover. In 1983, British journalist Anthony Grey published "The Prime Minister Was a Spy", in which he claimed that Holt was a lifelong spy for the People's Republic of China. According to Grey, Holt faked his own death to defect to China, and was "collected" by frogmen, who dragged him to a waiting submarine. Reviewers noted multiple factual errors in the book, not least that it was physically impossible for a submarine to be positioned so close to the shore. His wife and grandson have both denied the theories; Zara also observed that her husband "didn't even like Chinese food".


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Holt is remembered more for the circumstances of his death than for his political achievements. Sol Encel believed that his disappearance marked the end of an interregnum between the stability of Menzies and the internal conflict the Liberal Party experienced under Gorton and William McMahon. Australia had only one prime minister (Menzies) from 1949 to 1965, but six prime ministers from 1966 to 1975. Peter Bowers said that Holt's death ended Australia's "age of innocence", as it meant national leaders could no longer keep their private lives completely away from public scrutiny.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: On the first anniversary of Holt's death, a commemorative plaque was bolted to a reef at Cheviot Beach, about underwater. Monuments to Holt were placed on the cliff above the beach and at the Melbourne General Cemetery, the latter featuring the inscription "he loved the sea". In September 1968, a naval communication station in Western Australia was renamed in Holt's honour. The following year, Holt's widow was invited to Los Angeles to launch the USS "Harold E. Holt" – one of only a handful of U.S. Navy ships named after foreign leaders. In March 1969, the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre was opened in suburban Melbourne. It had been under construction at the time of Holt's death, and the Malvern City Council voted to name it in his honour, in part because he had been the local member of parliament. The Australian Army also dedicated a swimming pool to Holt's memory – the Harold Holt Memorial Pool at the Australian base in Vũng Tàu, Vietnam.


title: Disappearance of Harold Holt

text: Holt's death has entered Australian folklore, and is frequently the subject of black humour. Travel writer Bill Bryson labelled it "the swim that needed no towel". Holt's name has become a byword for any sudden or unexplained disappearance; the phrase "to do a Harold Holt" is rhyming slang for "to bolt" (i.e., to make a quick exit). Holt's death spawned a storyline in the Australian soap opera "Neighbours", and has also been credited with inspiring "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin", a British television series. In 1988, rugby league commentator Jack Gibson – ex-coach of the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks – said, "waiting for Cronulla to win a Grand Final is like leaving a porch light on for Harold Holt". Over the following 30 years, opposition fans taunted Cronulla by waving posters of Holt's face and dressing up in wetsuits; the club eventually won its first premiership in 2016.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart (February 6, 1833May 12, 1864) was a United States Army officer from Virginia who became a Confederate States Army general during the American Civil War. He was known to his friends as "Jeb,” from the initials of his given names. Stuart was a cavalry commander known for his mastery of reconnaissance and the use of cavalry in support of offensive operations. While he cultivated a cavalier image (red-lined gray cape, the yellow waist sash of a regular cavalry officer, hat cocked to the side with an ostrich plume, red flower in his lapel, often sporting cologne), his serious work made him the trusted eyes and ears of Robert E. Lee's army and inspired Southern morale.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart graduated from West Point in 1854, and served in Texas and Kansas with the U.S. Army. Stuart was a veteran of the frontier conflicts with Native Americans and the violence of Bleeding Kansas, and he participated in the capture of John Brown at Harpers Ferry. He resigned his commission when his home state of Virginia seceded, to serve in the Confederate Army, first under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, but then in increasingly important cavalry commands of the Army of Northern Virginia, playing a role in all of that army's campaigns until his death.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: He established a reputation as an audacious cavalry commander and on two occasions (during the Peninsula Campaign and the Maryland Campaign) circumnavigated the Union Army of the Potomac, bringing fame to himself and embarrassment to the North. At the Battle of Chancellorsville, he distinguished himself as a temporary commander of the wounded Stonewall Jackson's infantry corps.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart's most famous campaign, the Gettysburg Campaign, was flawed when his long separation from Lee's army left Lee unaware of Union troop movements so that Lee was surprised and almost trapped at the Battle of Gettysburg. Stuart received criticism from the Southern press as well as the proponents of the Lost Cause movement after the war. During the 1864 Overland Campaign, Union Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's cavalry launched an offensive to defeat Stuart, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart was born at Laurel Hill Farm, a plantation in Patrick County, Virginia, near the border with North Carolina. He was the eighth of eleven children and the youngest of the five sons to survive past early age. His father, Archibald Stuart, was a War of 1812 veteran, slaveholder, attorney, and politician who represented Patrick County in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, and also served one term in the United States House of Representatives. His mother Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart ran the family farm, and was known as a strict religious woman with a good sense for business.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: He was of Scottish descent (including some Scots-Irish). His great-grandfather, Major Alexander Stuart, commanded a regiment at the Battle of Guilford Court House during the Revolutionary War. His father Archibald was a cousin of attorney Alexander Hugh Holmes Stuart.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart was educated at home by his mother and tutors until the age of twelve, when he left Laurel Hill to be educated by various teachers in Wytheville, Virginia, and at the home of his aunt Anne (Archibald's sister) and her husband Judge James Ewell Brown (Stuart's namesake) at Danville. He entered Emory and Henry College when he was fifteen, and attended from 1848 to 1850.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: During the summer of 1848, Stuart attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army, but was rejected as underaged. He obtained an appointment in 1850 to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from Representative Thomas Hamlet Averett, the man who had defeated his father in the 1848 election. Stuart was a popular student and was happy at the Academy. Although he was not handsome in his teen years, his classmates called him by the nickname "Beauty", which they described as his "personal comeliness in inverse ratio to the term employed." He quickly grew a beard after graduation and a fellow officer remarked that he was "the only man he ever saw that [a] beard improved."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Robert E. Lee was appointed superintendent of the academy in 1852, and Stuart became a friend of the family, seeing them socially on frequent occasions. Lee's nephew, Fitzhugh Lee, also arrived at the academy in 1852. In Stuart's final year, in addition to achieving the cadet rank of second captain of the corps, he was one of eight cadets designated as honorary "cavalry officers" for his skills in horsemanship. Stuart graduated 13th in his class of 46 in 1854. He ranked tenth in his class in cavalry tactics. Although he enjoyed the civil engineering curriculum at the academy and did well in mathematics, his poor drawing skills hampered his engineering studies, and he finished 29th in that discipline.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant and assigned to the U.S. Regiment of Mounted Riflemen in Texas. After an arduous journey, he reached Fort Davis on January 28, 1855, and was a leader for three months on scouting missions over the San Antonio to El Paso Road. He was soon transferred to the newly formed 1st Cavalry Regiment (1855) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, where he became regimental quartermaster and commissary officer under the command of Col. Edwin V. Sumner. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1855.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Also in 1855, Stuart met Flora Cooke, the daughter of the commander of the 2nd U.S. Dragoon Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke. Burke Davis described Flora as "an accomplished horsewoman, and though not pretty, an effective charmer," to whom "Stuart succumbed with hardly a struggle." They became engaged in September, less than two months after meeting. Stuart humorously wrote of his rapid courtship in Latin, ""Veni, Vidi, Victus sum"" (I came, I saw, I was conquered). Although a gala wedding had been planned for Fort Riley, Kansas, the death of Stuart's father on September 20 caused a change of plans and the marriage on November 14 was small and limited to family witnesses. Their first child, a girl, was born in 1856 but died the same day. On November 14, 1857, Flora gave birth to another daughter, whom the parents named Flora after her mother. The family relocated in early 1858 to Fort Riley, where they remained for three years. The couple owned two slaves until 1859, one inherited from his father's estate, the other purchased.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart's leadership capabilities were soon recognized. He was a veteran of the frontier conflicts with Native Americans and the antebellum violence of Bleeding Kansas. He was wounded on July 29, 1857, while fighting at Solomon River, Kansas, against the Cheyenne. Col. Sumner ordered a charge with drawn sabers against a wave of Native American arrows. Scattering the under-armed warriors, Stuart and three other lieutenants chased one down, whom Stuart wounded in the thigh with his pistol. The Cheyenne turned and fired at Stuart with an old-fashioned pistol, striking him in the chest with a bullet, which did little more damage than to pierce the skin. Stuart returned in September to Fort Leavenworth and was reunited with his wife.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: In 1859, Stuart developed a new piece of cavalry equipment, for which he received patent number 25,684 on October 4—a saber hook, or an "improved method of attaching sabers to belts." The U.S. government paid Stuart $5,000 for a "right to use" license and Stuart contracted with Knorr, Nece and Co. of Philadelphia to manufacture his hook. While in Washington, D.C., to discuss government contracts, and in conjunction with his application for an appointment into the quartermaster department, Stuart heard about John Brown's raid on the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Stuart volunteered to be aide-de-camp to Col. Robert E. Lee and accompanied Lee with a company of U.S. Marines from the Marine Barracks, 8th & I, Washington, DC. and four companies of Maryland militia. While delivering Lee's written surrender ultimatum to the leader of the group, who had been calling himself Isaac Smith, Stuart recognized "Old Osawatomie Brown" from his days in Kansas.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart was promoted to captain on April 22, 1861, but resigned from the U.S. Army on May 3, 1861, to join the Confederate States Army, following the secession of Virginia. On June 26, 1860, Flora gave birth to a son, Philip St. George Cooke Stuart, but his father changed the name to James Ewell Brown Stuart, Jr. ("Jimmie"), in late 1861 out of disgust with his father-in-law. Upon learning that his father-in-law, Col. Cooke, would remain in the U.S. Army during the coming war, Stuart wrote to his brother-in-law (future Confederate Brig. Gen. John Rogers Cooke), "He will regret it but once, and that will be continuously."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel of Virginia Infantry in the Confederate Army on May 10, 1861. Maj. Gen. Robert E. Lee, now commanding the armed forces of Virginia, ordered him to report to Colonel Thomas J. Jackson at Harper's Ferry. Jackson chose to ignore Stuart's infantry designation and assigned him on July 4 to command all the cavalry companies of the Army of the Shenandoah, organized as the 1st Virginia Cavalry Regiment. He was promoted to colonel on July 16.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: After early service in the Shenandoah Valley, Stuart led his regiment in the First Battle of Bull Run (where Jackson got his nickname, "Stonewall"), and participated in the pursuit of the retreating Federals. He then commanded the Army's outposts along the upper Potomac River until given command of the cavalry brigade for the army then known as the Army of the Potomac (later named the Army of Northern Virginia). He was promoted to brigadier general on September 24, 1861.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: In 1862, the Union Army of the Potomac began its Peninsula Campaign against Richmond, Virginia, and Stuart's cavalry brigade assisted Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army as it withdrew up the Virginia Peninsula in the face of superior numbers. Stuart fought at the Battle of Williamsburg, but in general the terrain and weather on the Peninsula did not lend themselves to cavalry operations.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: However, when Gen. Robert E. Lee became commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, he requested that Stuart perform reconnaissance to determine whether the right flank of the Union army was vulnerable. Stuart set out with 1,200 troopers on the morning of June 12 and, having determined that the flank was indeed vulnerable, took his men on a complete circumnavigation of the Union army, returning after 150 miles on June 15 with 165 captured Union soldiers, 260 horses and mules, and various quartermaster and ordnance supplies. His men met no serious opposition from the more decentralized Union cavalry, coincidentally commanded by his father-in-law, Col. Cooke, and their total casualties amounted to one man killed. The maneuver was a public relations sensation and Stuart was greeted with flower petals thrown in his path at Richmond. He had become as famous as Stonewall Jackson in the eyes of the Confederacy.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Early in the Northern Virginia Campaign, Stuart was promoted to major general on July 25, 1862, and his command was upgraded to the Cavalry Division. He was nearly captured and lost his signature plumed hat and cloak to pursuing Federals during a raid in August, but in a retaliatory raid at Catlett's Station the following day, managed to overrun Union army commander Maj. Gen. John Pope's headquarters, and not only captured Pope's full uniform, but also intercepted orders that provided Lee with valuable intelligence concerning reinforcements for Pope's army.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: At the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas), Stuart's cavalry followed the massive assault by Longstreet's infantry against Pope's army, protecting its flank with artillery batteries. Stuart ordered Brig. Gen. Beverly Robertson's brigade to pursue the Federals and in a sharp fight against Brig. Gen. John Buford's brigade, Col. Thomas T. Munford's 2nd Virginia Cavalry was overwhelmed until Stuart sent in two more regiments as reinforcements. Buford's men, many of whom were new to combat, retreated across Lewis's Ford and Stuart's troopers captured over 300 of them. Stuart's men harassed the retreating Union columns until the campaign ended at the Battle of Chantilly.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: During the Maryland Campaign of September 1862, Stuart's cavalry screened the army's movement north. He bears some responsibility for Robert E. Lee's lack of knowledge of the position and celerity of the pursuing Army of the Potomac under George B. McClellan. For a five-day period, Stuart rested his men and entertained local civilians at a gala ball at Urbana, Maryland. His reports make no reference to intelligence gathering by his scouts or patrols. As the Union Army drew near to Lee's divided army, Stuart's men skirmished at various points on the approach to Frederick and Stuart was not able to keep his brigades concentrated enough to resist the oncoming tide. He misjudged the Union routes of advance, ignorant of the Union force threatening Turner's Gap, and required assistance from the infantry of Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill to defend the South Mountain passes in the Battle of South Mountain. His horse artillery bombarded the flank of the Union army as it opened its attack in the Battle of Antietam. By mid-afternoon, Stonewall Jackson ordered Stuart to command a turning movement with his cavalry against the Union right flank and rear, which if successful would be followed up by an infantry attack from the West Woods. Stuart began probing the Union lines with more artillery barrages, which were answered with "murderous" counterbattery fire and the cavalry movement intended by Jackson was never launched.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Three weeks after Lee's army had withdrawn back to Virginia, on October 10–12, 1862, Stuart performed another of his audacious circumnavigations of the Army of the Potomac, his Chambersburg Raid—126 miles in under 60 hours, from Darkesville, West Virginia to as far north as Mercersburg, Pennsylvania and Chambersburg and around to the east through Emmitsburg, Maryland and south through Hyattstown, Maryland and White's Ford to Leesburg, Virginia—once again embarrassing his Union opponents and seizing horses and supplies, but at the expense of exhausted men and animals, without gaining much military advantage. Jubal Early referred to it as "the greatest horse stealing expedition" that only "annoyed" the enemy. Stuart gave his friend Jackson a fine, new officer's tunic, trimmed with gold lace, commissioned from a Richmond tailor, which he thought would give Jackson more of the appearance of a proper general (something to which Jackson was notoriously indifferent).


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: McClellan pushed his army slowly south, urged by President Lincoln to pursue Lee, crossing the Potomac starting on October 26. As Lee began moving to counter this, Stuart screened Longstreet's Corps and skirmished numerous times in early November against Union cavalry and infantry around Mountville, Aldie, and Upperville. On November 6, Stuart received sad news by telegram that his daughter Flora had died just before her fifth birthday of typhoid fever on November 3.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: In the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, Stuart and his cavalry—most notably his horse artillery under Major John Pelham—protected Stonewall Jackson's flank at Hamilton's Crossing. General Lee commended his cavalry, which "effectually guarded our right, annoying the enemy and embarrassing his movements by hanging on his flank, and attacking when the opportunity occurred." Stuart reported to Flora the next day that he had been shot through his fur collar but was unhurt.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: After Christmas, Lee ordered Stuart to conduct a raid north of the Rappahannock River to "penetrate the enemy's rear, ascertain if possible his position & movements, & inflict upon him such damage as circumstances will permit." With 1,800 troopers and a horse artillery battery assigned to the operation, Stuart's raid reached as far north as four miles south of Fairfax Court House, seizing 250 prisoners, horses, mules, and supplies. Tapping telegraph lines, his signalmen intercepted messages between Union commanders, and Stuart sent a personal telegram to Union Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, "General Meigs will in the future please furnish better mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: On March 17, 1863, Stuart's cavalry clashed with a Union raiding party at Kelly's Ford. The minor victory was marred by the death of Major Pelham, which caused Stuart profound grief, as he thought of him as close as a younger brother. He wrote to a Confederate Congressman, "The noble, the chivalric, the gallant Pelham is no more. ... Let the tears of agony we have shed, and the gloom of mourning throughout my command bear witness." Flora was pregnant at the time and Stuart told her that if it were a boy, he wanted him to be named John Pelham Stuart. (Virginia Pelham Stuart was born October 9.)


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: At the Battle of Chancellorsville, Stuart accompanied Stonewall Jackson on his famous flanking march of May 2, 1863, and started to pursue the retreating soldiers of the Union XI Corps when he received word that both Jackson and his senior division commander, Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill, had been wounded. Hill, bypassing the next most senior infantry general in the corps, Brig. Gen. Robert E. Rodes, sent a message ordering Stuart to take command of the Second Corps. Although the delays associated with this change of command effectively ended the flanking attack the night of May 2, Stuart performed creditably as an infantry corps commander the following day, launching a strong and well-coordinated attack against the Union right flank at Chancellorsville. When Union troops abandoned Hazel Grove, Stuart had the presence of mind to quickly occupy it and bombard the Union positions with artillery. Stuart relinquished his infantry command on May 6 when Hill returned to duty. Stephen W. Sears wrote:


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stonewall Jackson died on May 10 and Stuart was once again devastated by the loss of a close friend, telling his staff that the death was a "national calamity." Jackson's wife, Mary Anna, wrote to Stuart on August 1, thanking him for a note of sympathy: "I need not assure you of which you already know, that your friendship & admiration were cordially reciprocated by him. I have frequently heard him speak of Gen'l Stuart as one of his warm personal friends, & also express admiration for your Soldierly qualities."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Returning to the cavalry for the Gettysburg Campaign, Stuart endured the two low points in his career, starting with the Battle of Brandy Station, the largest predominantly cavalry engagement of the war. By June 5, two of Lee's infantry corps were camped in and around Culpeper. Six miles northeast, holding the line of the Rappahannock River, Stuart bivouacked his cavalry troopers, mostly near Brandy Station, screening the Confederate Army against surprise by the enemy. Stuart requested a full field review of his troops by Gen. Lee. This grand review on June 5 included nearly 9,000 mounted troopers and four batteries of horse artillery, charging in simulated battle at Inlet Station, about two miles (three km) southwest of Brandy Station.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Lee was not able to attend the review, however, so it was repeated in his presence on June 8, although the repeated performance was limited to a simple parade without battle simulations. Despite the lower level of activity, some of the cavalrymen and the newspaper reporters at the scene complained that all Stuart was doing was feeding his ego and exhausting the horses. Lee ordered Stuart to cross the Rappahannock the next day and raid Union forward positions, screening the Confederate Army from observation or interference as it moved north. Anticipating this imminent offensive action, Stuart ordered his tired troopers back into bivouac around Brandy Station.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker interpreted Stuart's presence around Culpeper to be indicative of preparations for a raid on his army's supply lines. In reaction, he ordered his cavalry commander, Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton, to take a combined arms force of 8,000 cavalrymen and 3,000 infantry on a "spoiling raid" to "disperse and destroy" the 9,500 Confederates. Pleasonton's force crossed the Rappahannock in two columns on June 9, 1863, the first crossing at Beverly's Ford (Brig. Gen. John Buford's division) catching Stuart by surprise, waking him and his staff to the sound of gunfire. The second crossing, at Kelly's Ford, surprised Stuart again, and the Confederates found themselves assaulted from front and rear in a spirited melee of mounted combat. A series of confusing charges and countercharges swept back and forth across Fleetwood Hill, which had been Stuart's headquarters the previous night. After ten hours of fighting, Pleasonton ordered his men to withdraw across the Rappahannock.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Although Stuart claimed a victory because the Confederates held the field, Brandy Station is considered a tactical draw, and both sides came up short. Pleasonton was not able to disable Stuart's force at the start of an important campaign and he withdrew before finding the location of Lee's infantry nearby. However, the fact that the Southern cavalry had not detected the movement of two large columns of Union cavalry, and that they fell victim to a surprise attack, was an embarrassment that prompted serious criticism from fellow generals and the Southern press. The fight also revealed the increased competency of the Union cavalry, and foreshadowed the decline of the formerly invincible Southern mounted arm.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Following a series of small cavalry battles in June as Lee's army began marching north through the Shenandoah Valley, Stuart may have had in mind the glory of circumnavigating the enemy army once again, desiring to erase the stain on his reputation of the surprise at Brandy Station. General Lee gave orders to Stuart on June 22 on how he was to participate in the march north. The exact nature of those orders has been argued by the participants and historians ever since, but the essence was that Stuart was instructed to guard the mountain passes with part of his force while the Army of Northern Virginia was still south of the Potomac, and that he was to cross the river with the remainder of the army and screen the right flank of Ewell's Second Corps. Instead of taking a direct route north near the Blue Ridge Mountains, however, Stuart chose to reach Ewell's flank by taking his three best brigades (those of Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton, Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, and Col. John R. Chambliss, the latter replacing the wounded Brig. Gen. W.H.F. "Rooney" Lee) between the Union army and Washington, moving north through Rockville to Westminster and on into Pennsylvania, hoping to capture supplies along the way and cause havoc near the enemy capital. Stuart and his three brigades departed Salem Depot at 1 a.m. on June 25.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Unfortunately for Stuart's plan, the Union army's movement was underway and his proposed route was blocked by columns of Federal infantry, forcing him to veer farther to the east than either he or General Lee had anticipated. This prevented Stuart from linking up with Ewell as ordered and deprived Lee of the use of his prime cavalry force, the "eyes and ears" of the army, while advancing into unfamiliar enemy territory.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart's command crossed the Potomac River at 3 a.m. on June 28. At Rockville they captured a wagon train of 140 brand-new, fully loaded wagons and mule teams. This wagon train would prove to be a logistical hindrance to Stuart's advance, but he interpreted Lee's orders as placing importance on gathering supplies. The proximity of the Confederate raiders provoked some consternation in the national capital and two Union cavalry brigades and an artillery battery were sent to pursue the Confederates. Stuart supposedly said that were it not for his fatigued horses "he would have marched down the 7th Street Road [and] took Abe & Cabinet prisoners."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: In Westminster on June 29, his men clashed briefly with and overwhelmed two companies of Union cavalry, chasing them a long distance on the Baltimore road, which Stuart claimed caused a "great panic" in the city of Baltimore. The head of Stuart's column encountered Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry as it passed through Hanover and scattered it on June 30; the Battle of Hanover ended after Kilpatrick's men regrouped and drove the Confederates out of town. Stuart's brigades had been better positioned to guard their captured wagon train than to take advantage of the encounter with Kilpatrick. After a 20-mile trek in the dark, his exhausted men reached Dover on the morning of July 1, as the Battle of Gettysburg was commencing without them.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart headed next for Carlisle, hoping to find Ewell. He lobbed a few shells into town during the early evening of July 1 and burned the Carlisle Barracks before withdrawing to the south towards Gettysburg. He and the bulk of his command reached Lee at Gettysburg the afternoon of July 2. He ordered Wade Hampton to cover the left rear of the Confederate battle lines, and Hampton fought with Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Hunterstown before joining Stuart at Gettysburg.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: When Stuart arrived at Gettysburg on the afternoon of July 2—bringing with him the caravan of captured Union supply wagons—he received a rare rebuke from Lee. No one witnessed the private meeting between Lee and Stuart, but reports circulated at headquarters that Lee's greeting was "abrupt and frosty." Colonel Edward Porter Alexander wrote, "Although Lee said only, 'Well, General, you are here at last,' his manner implied rebuke, and it was so understood by Stuart." On the final day of the battle, Stuart was ordered to move into the enemy's rear and disrupt its line of communications at the same time Pickett's Charge was sent against the Union positions on Cemetery Ridge, but his attack on East Cavalry Field was repelled by Union cavalry under Brig. Gens. David Gregg and George Custer.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: During the retreat from Gettysburg, Stuart devoted his full attention to supporting the army's movement, successfully screening against aggressive Union cavalry pursuit and escorting thousands of wagons with wounded men and captured supplies over difficult roads and through inclement weather. Numerous skirmishes and minor battles occurred during the screening and delaying actions of the retreat. Stuart's men were the final units to cross the Potomac River, returning to Virginia in "wretched condition—completely worn out and broken down."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: The Gettysburg Campaign was the most controversial of Stuart's career. He became one of the scapegoats (along with James Longstreet) blamed for Lee's loss at Gettysburg by proponents of the postbellum Lost Cause movement, such as Jubal Early. This was fueled in part by opinions of less partisan writers, such as Stuart's subordinate, Thomas L. Rosser, who stated after the war that Stuart did, "on this campaign, "undoubtedly", make the fatal blunder which lost us the battle of Gettysburg." In General Lee's report on the campaign, he wrote


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: One of the most forceful postbellum defenses of Stuart was by Col. John S. Mosby, who had served under him during the campaign and was fiercely loyal to the late general, writing, "He made me all that I was in the war. ... But for his friendship I would never have been heard of." He wrote numerous articles for popular publications and published a book length treatise in 1908, a work that relied on his skills as a lawyer to refute categorically all of the claims laid against Stuart.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Historians remain divided on how much the defeat at Gettysburg was due to Stuart’s failure to keep Lee informed. Edward G. Longacre argues that Lee deliberately gave Stuart wide discretion in his orders. Edwin B. Coddington refers to the "tragedy" of Stuart in the Gettysburg Campaign and judges that when Fitzhugh Lee raised the question of "whether Stuart exercised the discretion "undoubtedly given to him, judiciously"," the answer is no. Agreeing that Stuart's absence permitted Lee to be surprised at Gettysburg, Coddington points out that the Union commander was just as surprised. Eric J. Wittenberg and J. David Petruzzi have concluded that there was "plenty of blame to go around" and the fault should be divided between Stuart, the lack of specificity in Lee's orders, and Richard S. Ewell, who might have tried harder to link up with Stuart northeast of Gettysburg. Jeffry D. Wert acknowledges that Lee, his officers, and fighting by the Army of the Potomac bear the responsibility for the Confederate loss at Gettysburg, but states that "Stuart failed Lee and the army in the reckoning at Gettysburg. ... Lee trusted him and gave him discretion, but Stuart acted injudiciously."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Although Stuart was not reprimanded or disciplined in any official way for his role in the Gettysburg campaign, it is noteworthy that his appointment to corps command on September 9, 1863, did not carry with it a promotion to lieutenant general. Edward Bonekemper wrote that since all other corps commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia carried this rank, Lee's decision to keep Stuart at major general rank, while at the same time promoting Stuart's subordinates Wade Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee to major generals, could be considered an implied rebuke. Wert wrote that there is no evidence Lee considered Stuart's performance during the Gettysburg Campaign and that it is "more likely that Lee thought the responsibilities in command of a cavalry corps did not equal those of an infantry corps."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Lee reorganized his cavalry on September 9, creating a Cavalry Corps for Stuart with two divisions of three brigades each. In the Bristoe Campaign, Stuart was assigned to lead a broad turning movement in an attempt to get into the enemy's rear, but General Meade skillfully withdrew his army without leaving Stuart any opportunities to take advantage of. On October 13, Stuart blundered into the rear guard of the Union III Corps near Warrenton, resulting in the First Battle of Auburn. Ewell's corps was sent to rescue him, but Stuart hid his troopers in a wooded ravine until the unsuspecting III Corps moved on, and the assistance was not necessary. As Meade withdrew towards Manassas Junction, brigades from the Union II Corps fought a rearguard action against Stuart's cavalry and the infantry of Brig. Gen. Harry Hays's division near Auburn on October 14. Stuart's cavalry boldly bluffed Warren's infantry and escaped disaster. After the Confederate repulse at Bristoe Station and an aborted advance on Centreville, Stuart's cavalry shielded the withdrawal of Lee's army from the vicinity of Manassas Junction. Judson Kilpatrick's Union cavalry pursued Stuart's cavalry along the Warrenton Turnpike, but were lured into an ambush near Chestnut Hill and routed. The Federal troopers were scattered and chased five miles (eight km) in an affair that came to be known as the "Buckland Races". The Southern press began to mute its criticism of Stuart following his successful performance during the fall campaign.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: The Overland Campaign, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's offensive against Lee in the spring of 1864, began at the Battle of the Wilderness, where Stuart aggressively pushed Thomas L. Rosser's Laurel Brigade into a fight against George Custer's better-armed Michigan Brigade, resulting in significant losses. General Lee sent a message to Stuart: "It is very important to save your Cavalry & not wear it out. ... You must use your good judgment to make any attack which may offer advantages." As the armies maneuvered toward their next confrontation at Spotsylvania Court House, Stuart's cavalry fought delaying actions against the Union cavalry. His defense at Laurel Hill, also directing the infantry of Brig. Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw, skillfully delayed the advance of the Federal army for nearly 5 critical hours.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: The commander of the Army of the Potomac, Maj. Gen. George Meade, and his cavalry commander, Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, quarreled about the Union cavalry's performance in the first two engagements of the Overland Campaign. Sheridan heatedly asserted that he wanted to "concentrate all of cavalry, move out in force against Stuart's command, and whip it." Meade reported the comments to Grant, who replied, "Did Sheridan say that? Well, he generally knows what he is talking about. Let him start right out and do it." Sheridan immediately organized a raid against Confederate supply and railroad lines close to Richmond, which he knew would bring Stuart to battle.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Sheridan moved aggressively to the southeast, crossing the North Anna River and seizing Beaver Dam Station on the Virginia Central Railroad, where his men captured a train, liberating 3,000 Union prisoners and destroying more than one million rations and medical supplies destined for Lee's army. Stuart dispatched a force of about 3,000 cavalrymen to intercept Sheridan's cavalry, which was more than three times their numbers. As he rode in pursuit, accompanied by his aide, Maj. Andrew R. Venable, they were able to stop briefly along the way to be greeted by Stuart's wife, Flora, and his children, Jimmie and Virginia. Venable wrote of Stuart, "He told me he never expected to live through the war, and that if we were conquered, that he did not want to live."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: The Battle of Yellow Tavern occurred May 11, at an abandoned inn located north of Richmond. The Confederate troops resisted from the low ridgeline bordering the road to Richmond, fighting for over three hours. After receiving a scouting report from Texas Jack Omohundro, Stuart led a countercharge and pushed the advancing Union troopers back from the hilltop. Stuart, on horseback, shouted encouragement from in front of Company K of the 1st Virginia Cavalry while firing his revolver at the Union troopers.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: As the 5th Michigan Cavalry streamed in retreat past Stuart, a dismounted Union private, 44-year-old John A. Huff, turned and shot Stuart with his .44-caliber revolver from a distance of 10–30 yards. Huff's bullet struck Stuart in the left side. It then sliced through his stomach and exited his back, one inch to the right of his spine. Stuart fell into the arms of Company K's commander Gus W. Dorsey. Dorsey caught him and took him from his horse. Stuart told him: "Dorsey...save your men." Dorsey refused to leave him and brought Stuart to the rear.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: He suffered great pain as an ambulance took him to Richmond to await his wife's arrival at the home of Dr. Charles Brewer, his brother-in-law. As he was being driven from the field in an ambulance wagon, Stuart noticed disorganized ranks of retreating men and called out to them his last words on the battlefield: "Go back, go back, and do your duty, as I have done mine, and our country will be safe. Go back, go back! I had rather die than be whipped."


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart ordered his sword and spurs be given to his son. As his aide Major McClellan left his side, Confederate President Jefferson Davis came in, took General Stuart's hand, and asked, "General, how do you feel?" Stuart answered "Easy, but willing to die, if God and my country think I have fulfilled my destiny and done my duty." His last whispered words were: "I am resigned; God's will be done." He died at 7:38 p.m. on May 12, the following day, before Flora Stuart reached his side. He was 31 years old. Stuart was buried in Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery. Upon learning of Stuart's death, General Lee is reported to have said that he could hardly keep from weeping at the mere mention of Stuart's name and that Stuart had never given him a bad piece of information. John Huff, the private who had fatally wounded Stuart, was killed in action just a few weeks later at the Battle of Haw's Shop.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Flora wore the black of mourning for the remainder of her life, and never remarried. She lived in Saltville, Virginia, for 15 years after the war, where she opened and taught at a school in a log cabin. She worked from 1880 to 1898 as principal of the Virginia Female Institute in Staunton, Virginia, a position for which Robert E. Lee had recommended her before his death ten years earlier. In 1907, the institute was renamed Stuart Hall School in her honor. Upon the death of her daughter Virginia, from complications in childbirth in 1898, Flora resigned from the institute and moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where she helped Virginia's widower, Robert Page Waller, in raising her grandchildren. She died in Norfolk on May 10, 1923, after striking her head in a fall on a city sidewalk. She is buried alongside her husband and their daughter, Little Flora, in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Like his intimate friend, Stonewall Jackson, General J.E.B. Stuart was a legendary figure and is considered one of the greatest cavalry commanders in American history. His friend from his federal army days, Union Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick, said that Stuart was "the greatest cavalry officer ever foaled in America." Jackson and Stuart, both of whom were killed in battle, had colorful public images, although the latter's seems to have been more deliberately crafted. Wert wrote about Stuart:


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart's birthplace, Laurel Hill, located in Patrick County, Virginia, was purchased by the J.E.B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust, Inc., in 1992 to preserve and interpret it. In December 2006, a personal Confederate battle flag, sewn by Flora Stuart, was sold in a Heritage Auction for a world-record price for any Confederate flag, for $956,000 (including buyer's premium). The 34-inch by 34-inch flag was hand-sewn for Stuart by Flora in 1862, and Stuart carried it into some of his most famous battles.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: A statue of Stuart, by sculptor Frederick Moynihan, used to occupy a space on Richmond's Monument Avenue at Stuart Circle. Originally dedicated in 1907, the statue was removed on July 7, 2020.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: U.S. Route 58, in Virginia, is named the "J.E.B. Stuart Highway". In 1884 the town of Taylorsville, Virginia, was renamed Stuart. The British Army named two models of American-made World War II tanks, the M3 and M5, the Stuart tank in General Stuart's honor.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: A middle school in Jacksonville, Florida is named for him. A high school named after him on Munson's Hill in Falls Church, Virginia, opened in 1959. In early 2017, Fairfax County Public Schools established an Ad Hoc Working Committee to assist the Fairfax County School Board in determining whether to rename the Stuart High School in Virginia, in response to suggestions from students and local community members that FCPS should not continue to honor a Confederate general who fought in support of a cause dedicated to maintaining the institution of slavery in Virginia and other states. The creation of the committee followed the circulation of a petition started by actress Julianne Moore and Bruce Cohen in 2016, which garnered over 35,000 signatures in support of changing the school's name to one honoring the late United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: On July 27, 2017, the Fairfax County School Board approved a measure to change the school name no later than the start of the 2019 school year. The measure asked that "Stuart High School" be considered as a possibility for the new name. On October 27, 2017, the Fairfax County School Board voted to change the name of J.E.B. Stuart High School to "Justice High School." Board member Sandy Evans from the Mason District said that the name will honor Justice Thurgood Marshall, civil rights leader Barbara Rose Johns, U.S. Army officer Louis Gonzaga Mendez Jr., and all those who have fought for justice and equality.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: On June 18, 2018, the school board for Richmond Public Schools in Richmond, Virginia voted 6–1 to rename J. E. B. Stuart Elementary School to Barack Obama Elementary School. On June 12, 2018, students of the school were given the opportunity to narrow down the choices for renaming the school from seven to three. Northside Elementary received 190 votes, Barack Obama Elementary earned 166 votes, and Wishtree Elementary received 127 votes. From there, the administration of Richmond Public Schools recommended to the school board that it rename the school after Barack Obama. Superintendent Jason Kamras said, "It's incredibly powerful that in the capital of the Confederacy, where we had a school named for an individual who fought to maintain slavery, that now we're renaming that school after the first black president. A lot of our kids, and our kids at J. E. B. Stuart, see themselves in Barack Obama." The student population of the newly named Barack Obama Elementary School is made up of more than 90 percent African-American children.


title: J. E. B. Stuart

text: Stuart Hall School is a Staunton, Virginia, co-educational school for students from pre-kindergarten to Grade 12, and it offers a boarding program from Grades 8 to 12. It was renamed in 1907 in honor of its most famous headmistress Mrs. Gen. Flora Cooke Stuart, the widow of Confederate cavalry leader Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) to protest the Chinese government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles decision to allow Japan to retain territories in Shandong that had been surrendered to Germany after the Siege of Tsingtao in 1914. The demonstrations sparked nation-wide protests and spurred an upsurge in Chinese nationalism, a shift towards political mobilization away from cultural activities, a move towards a populist base and away from traditional intellectual and political elites.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: The May Fourth demonstrations marked a turning point in a broader anti-traditional New Culture Movement (1915–1921) that sought to replace traditional Confucian values and was itself a continuation of late Qing reforms. Yet even after 1919, these educated "new youths" still defined their role with a traditional model in which the educated elite took responsibility for both cultural and political affairs. They opposed traditional culture but looked abroad for cosmopolitan inspiration in the name of nationalism and were an overwhelmingly urban movement that espoused populism in an overwhelmingly rural country. Many political and social leaders of the next five decades emerged at this time, including those of the Chinese Communist Party.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: "The atmosphere and political mood that emerged around 1919," in the words of Oxford University historian Rana Mitter, "are at the center of a set of ideas that has shaped China's momentous twentieth century." The Qing dynasty had disintegrated in 1911, marking the end of thousands of years of imperial rule in China, and theoretically ushered a new era in which political power rested nominally with the people. After the death of President Yuan Shikai in 1916, China became a fragmented nation dominated by regional leaders more concerned with political power and rival regional armies. The government in Beijing focused on suppressing internal dissent and could do little to counter foreign influence and control. Chinese Premier Duan Qirui's signing of the secret Sino-Japanese Joint Defence Agreement in 1918 enraged the Chinese public when it was leaked to the press, and sparked a student protest movement that laid the groundwork for the May Fourth Movement. The March 1st Movement in Korea in 1919, the Russian Revolution of 1917, continued defeats by foreign powers and the presence of spheres of influence further inflamed Chinese nationalism among the emerging middle class and cultural leaders.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Leaders of the New Culture Movement believed that traditional Confucian values were responsible for the political weakness of the nation. Chinese nationalists called for a rejection of traditional values and the adoption of Western ideals of "Mr. Science" () and "Mr. Democracy" () in place of "Mr. Confucius" in order to strengthen the new nation. These iconoclastic and anti-traditional views and programs have shaped China's politics and culture through to the present day.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: China had entered World War I on the side of the Allied Triple Entente in 1917. Although that year, 140,000 Chinese laborers were sent to the Western Front as a part of the Chinese Labor Corps, the Versailles Treaty of April 1919 awarded rights to the German territories in Shandong Province to Japan. The representatives of the Chinese government put forth the following requests:


title: May Fourth Movement

text: The Western allies dominated the meeting at Versailles, and paid little heed to Chinese demands. The European delegations, led by French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, were primarily interested in punishing Germany. Although the American delegation promoted Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the ideals of self-determination, they were unable to advance these ideals in the face of stubborn resistance by David Lloyd George and Clemenceau. American advocacy of self-determination at the League of Nations was attractive to Chinese intellectuals, but their failure to follow through was seen as a betrayal. This diplomatic failure at the Paris Peace Conference created what became known as the "Shandong Problem".


title: May Fourth Movement

text: On May 4, 1919, the May Fourth Movement, as a student patriotic movement, was initiated by a group of Chinese students protesting the contents of the Paris Peace Conference. Under the pressure of the May Fourth Movement, the Chinese delegation refused to sign the Versailles Treaty.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: The original participants of the May Fourth Movement were students in Paris and some in Beijing. They joined forces to strike or took to the streets to strike crudely to express their dissatisfaction with the government. Later, some advanced students in Shanghai and Guangzhou joined the protest movement, gradually forming a wave of mass student strikes across China. Until June 1919, the Beijing government carried out the "June 3" arrests, arresting nearly 1,000 students one after another, but this did not suppress the patriotic student movement but angered the whole Chinese people, leading to a greater revolutionary storm. Shanghai workers went on strike, and businessmen went on strike to support students' patriotic movement across the country. The Chinese working class entered the political arena through the May Fourth Movement.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: With the emergence of working-class support, the May Fourth Movement developed to a new stage. The center of the movement shifted from Beijing to Shanghai, and the working class replaced students as the main force of the movement. The Shanghai working class staged a strike of an unprecedented scale. The growing scale of the national strike and the increasing number of its participants led to a paralysis of the country's economic life and posed a serious threat to the government in Beijing. The working class took the place of the students to stand up and resist. The support for this movement throughout the country reflected the enthusiasm for nationalism and national rejuvenation, which was also the foundation for the development and expansion of the May Fourth Movement. Benjamin I. Schwartz added, "Nationalism which was, of course, a dominant passion of the May Fourth experience was not so much a separate ideology as a common disposition."


title: May Fourth Movement

text: On the morning of 4 May 1919, student representatives from thirteen different local universities met in Beijing and drafted five resolutions:


title: May Fourth Movement

text: On the afternoon of May 4 over 4,000 students of Yenching University, Peking University and other schools marched from many points to gather in front of Tiananmen. They shouted such slogans as "struggle for the sovereignty externally, get rid of the national traitors at home", "do away with the Twenty-One Demands", and "don't sign the Versailles Treaty".


title: May Fourth Movement

text: They voiced their anger at the Allied betrayal of China, denounced the government's spineless inability to protect Chinese interests, and called for a boycott of Japanese products. Demonstrators insisted on the resignation of three Chinese officials they accused of being collaborators with the Japanese. After burning the residences of these officials and beating some of their servants, student protesters were arrested, jailed, and severely beaten.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: The next day, students in Beijing as a whole went on strike and in the larger cities across China, students, patriotic merchants, and workers joined protests. The demonstrators skillfully appealed to the newspapers and sent representatives to carry the word across the country. From early June, workers and businessmen in Shanghai also went on strike as the center of the movement shifted from Beijing to Shanghai. Chancellors from thirteen universities arranged for the release of student prisoners, and Cai Yuanpei, the principal of Peking University resigned in protest.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Newspapers, magazines, citizen societies, and chambers of commerce offered support for the students. Merchants threatened to withhold tax payments if China's government remained obstinate. In Shanghai, a general strike of merchants and workers nearly devastated the entire Chinese economy. Under intense public pressure, the Beijing government released the arrested students and dismissed Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang and Lu Zongyu that had been accused of being collaborators with the Japanese. Chinese representatives in Paris refused to sign the Versailles Treaty: the May Fourth Movement won an initial victory which was primarily symbolic, since Japan for the moment retained control of the Shandong Peninsula and the islands in the Pacific. Even the partial success of the movement exhibited the ability of China's social classes across the country to successfully collaborate given proper motivation and leadership.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Scholars rank the New Culture and May Fourth Movements as significant turning points, as David Wang said, "it was the turning point in China's search for literary modernity", along with the abolition of the civil service system in 1905 and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1911. The challenge to traditional Chinese values, however, was also met with strong opposition, especially from the Nationalist Party. From their perspective, the movement destroyed the positive elements of Chinese tradition and placed a heavy emphasis on direct political actions and radical attitudes, characteristics associated with the emerging Chinese Communist Party (CCP). On the other hand, the CCP, whose two founders, Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, were leaders of the movement, viewed it more favorably, although remaining suspicious of the early phase which emphasized the role of enlightened intellectuals, not revolution. In its broader sense, the May Fourth Movement led to the establishment of radical intellectuals who went on to mobilize peasants and workers into the CCP and gain the organizational strength that would solidify the success of the Chinese Communist Revolution.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: During the May 4th Movement, the group of intellectuals with communist ideas grew steadily, such as Chen Tanqiu, Zhou Enlai, Chen Duxiu, and others, who gradually appreciated Marxism's power. This promoted the sinicization of Marxism and provided a basis for the birth of the CCP and socialism with Chinese characteristics.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: For many years, the orthodox view in the People's Republic of China was that after the demonstrations of 1919 and their subsequent suppression, the discussion of possible policy changes became more and more politically realistic. Influential such as Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao shifted to the left and became founders of the CCP in 1921, while other intellectuals became more sympathetic. Originally voluntarist or nihilist figures like Li Shicen and Zhu Qianzhi made similar turns to the left as the 1920s saw China become increasingly turbulent.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: In 1939, CCP senior leader Mao Zedong claimed that the May Fourth Movement was a stage leading toward the fulfillment of the Chinese Communist Revolution:


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Paul French argues that the only victor of the Treaty of Versailles in China was communism, as rising public anger led directly to the formation of the CCP. The Treaty also led to Japan pursuing its conquests with greater boldness, which Wellington Koo had predicted in 1919 would lead to the outbreak of war between China and Japan.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: Western-style liberal democracy had previously had a degree of traction amongst Chinese intellectuals. Still, after the Versailles Treaty (which was viewed as a betrayal of China's interests), it lost much of its attractiveness. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, despite being rooted in moralism, were also seen as Western-centric and hypocritical.


title: May Fourth Movement

text: The May Fourth Movement focused on opposing Confucian culture and promoting a new culture. As a continuation of the New Culture movement, the May Fourth Movement greatly influenced the cultural field. The slogans of "democracy" and "science" advocated in the New Culture Movement were designed to attack the old culture and promote the new culture. This purpose can be summed up in a sentence from David Wang: "It was the turning point in China's search for literary modernity."