scholarly journals Geert Adriaans Boomgaard, the First Supercentenarian in History?

Author(s):  
Dany Chambre ◽  
Bernard Jeune ◽  
Michel Poulain

AbstractThis contribution presents the validation of the age at death of Geert Adriaans BOOMGAARD (GAB), a seaman who reached the age of 110. He was born in Groningen on 21 September 1788 and died in the same city on 3 February 1899. A remarkable number of documents have been found that cover the full span of GAB’s life, and thus make it possible to validate his reported exceptional age. In the first step of the validation, a comparison of the baptism and death records shows that the information provided is consistent, even if the spelling of the surnames of his parents reported in the two records is not identical. The reconstitution of GAB’s family and the dates of birth of his siblings also support the validity of GAB’s reported age at death. The demographic information covers the period between 1818 (the year of his first marriage) and 1837 (the year of birth of his last child). We found few documents that mention him during his early life before his first marriage, including a document from 1791 indicating that his father named his new boat De Jonge Geert as well as a list of conscripts from 1811 where his name appeared. By contrast, we found numerous documents covering the period from 1837 to 1899 that are related to his career as a seaman; the marriages of children; his entry into a nursing home; and various interviews, photos, and articles on his life that appeared in the press. All of these documents support the validity of GAB’s reported year of birth and age at death. Thus, GAB might be considered the first thoroughly validated supercentenarian in the history of humankind.

Author(s):  
Lynn Zastoupil

This essay re-examines the fact that J. S. Mill’s published work registers surprisingly few direct examples of influence from India, despite his lengthy East India Company career. Situating Mill’s contact with South Asia in the rich history of Anglo-Indian intellectual exchange that colonialism engendered, it argues that this missed opportunity to connect is striking because of the confluence of extraordinary motives and opportunity in Mill’s early life. During the 1830s, European intellectual influences and colonial imperatives combined to lead Mill to advocate a form of Einfühlung—sympathetic understanding of others—at the very moment when the visiting Indian reformer Rammohun Roy was being celebrated across Britain by many individuals close to Mill, such as Jeremy Bentham. Yet Mill never met Rammohun and he virtually ignored the celebrated Bengali in his correspondence and published work. This neglect, the chapter argues, is astounding: not only did Mill and Rammohun campaign alike for freedom of the press in the 1820s, but numerous people that Mill knew used Rammohun’s example to argue that social progress depends on such liberties, a view of progress that Mill shared at the time. The essay concludes that Mill’s rejection of this foundational idea of liberty in favour of the famously restrictive one espoused in On Liberty awaits proper investigation, as does the abandonment of Einfühlung in his later publications.


Author(s):  
Odile Moreau

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.


1989 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-328
Author(s):  
Salahudeen Yusuf

The history of Islam in part of what is known today as Nigeria datesto about the loth Century. Christianity dates to the late 18th Century. Bythe middle of the 19th Century, when Nigerian newspapers began to appearon the streets of Nigeria, both religions had won so many followers and extendedto so many places in Nigeria that very few areas were untouched bytheir influence. The impact of both religions on their adherents not only determinedtheir spiritual life, but influenced their social and political lives aswell. It therefore became inevitable that both religions receive coverage frommost of the newspapers of the time. How the newspapers as media of informationand communication reported issues about the two religions is thetheme of this paper.Rationale for the StudyThe purpose of this study is to highlight the context in which such earlynewspapers operated and the factors that dictated their performance. Thisis because it is assumed that when a society faces external threat to its territory,culture, and independence, all hands (the press inclusive) ought tobe on deck to resist the threat with all might. Were newspapers used as verbalartillery and how did they present each religion? It is also assumed thatin a multireligious society a true press should be objective and serve as avanguard in the promotion of the interest of the people in general and notcreate or foster an atmosphere of religious conflict. The study also aims atfinding out whether the papers promoted intellectual honesty and fosteredthe spirit of unity particularly when the society was faced with the encroachmentof the British who posed a threat to their freedom, culture, economy ...


2021 ◽  
Vol 246 ◽  
pp. 354-373
Author(s):  
Nicolai Volland

AbstractRed Guard newspapers and pamphlets (wenge xiaobao) were a key source for early research on the Cultural Revolution, but they have rarely been analysed in their own right. How did these publications regard their status and function within the larger information ecosystem of the People's Republic, and what is their role in the history of the modern Chinese public sphere? This article focuses on a particular subset of Red Guard papers, namely those published by radical groups within the PRC's press and publication system. These newspapers critiqued the pre-Cultural Revolution press and reflected upon the possible futures of a new, revolutionary Chinese press. Short-lived as these experiments were, they constitute a test case to re-examine the functioning of the public in a decidedly “uncivil” polity. Ultimately, they point to the ambiguous potential of the public for both consensus and conflict, liberation and repression, which characterizes the press in 20th-century China.


2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 338-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. McLeod ◽  
Howard L. Jelks ◽  
Sandra Pursifull ◽  
Nathan A. Johnson

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-43
Author(s):  
Sidney K. Ohlhausen

Robert Witham (1667–1738) was the seventh son of a prominent Yorkshire Catholic Recusant family. Little is known about his early life. He studied at Douay, where he was ordained a priest circa 1691, and remained as a teacher until circa 1698. He returned to England to serve as a priest in Cliffe and was promoted in 1711 to Vicar General of England’s Northern District. In 1714 he was appointed the twelfth president of Douay. He assumed the position in 1715 and remained there until his death. In administering Douay, he was faced with an unrelenting demand for the most resourceful diplomacy. He had to keep satisfied his superiors and benefactors in England and Rome, and deal with the liberalizing influences of French institutions. In addition, he was confronted with a series of financial crises, including the forfeiture of Catholic estates that followed the unsuccessful Stuart rising of 1715, followed by the ‘Mississippi Bubble’ that devastated the French economy and cost Douay most of its endowment. The frustrations of what he termed this ‘troublesome office’, caused him on three occasions to offer his resignation. Nonetheless, Witham proved to be one of Douay’s most successful presidents, sometimes considered its ‘second founder’, eliminating the College debt, increasing the number of students, and beginning an ambitious building programme.


Crustaceana ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce F. Phillips ◽  
John D. Booth

Author(s):  
Charles D. Phillips ◽  
Kathleen M. Spry

RÉSUMÉTrès peu de recherches ont été effectuées sur les pensionnaires des maisons de soins ayant manifestés des troubles mentaux chroniques sans démence avant leur entrée en institution. Les données du Minimum Data Set for Nursing Home Resident Assessment and Care Screening (MDS) de 1993 ont été utilisées pouranalyser les différences dans les caractéristiques et les soins se rapportant à ce type de pensionnaires par rapport aux autres pensionnaires. Cette enquête portait sur 70 000 pensionnaires du Kansas, du Maine, du Mississippi et du Dakota du Sud. Les caractéristiques des pensionnaires qui éprouvaient ce type de troubles mentaux chroniques étaient plus fréquemment les suivantes: sexe masculin, 65 ans et plus, bénéficiaires de Medicaid, moins médicalement inaptes et niveau plus élevé de problèmes de comportements. Ces pensionnaires reçoivent aussi davantage de médicaments psychotropes et suivant une thérapie, la prévalence de la thérapie étant cependant moins éleveé. Les informations recueillies pourraient laisser croire que les soins accordés à ces pensionnaires ne sont pas des plus appropriés.


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