“I don’t know how to describe it, Doctor Jobe. It sort of feels like my elbow is on fire.”

Tommy John has been immortalized for something he didn’t do.

Even if you’re just a casual baseball fan, you’ve probably heard of Tommy John Surgery, since it has been done to hundreds of ballplayers over the past several decades.  The thing is, Tommy didn’t perform that first operation, as some might mistakenly think — it was performed on him.

In July of 1974, John was pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  His record was 13-3; he had an impressive Earned Run Average of 2.59 on the night he threw a sinker and felt his arm go fiery pins-and-needles.  The sinker didn’t sink; instead, the ball sailed toward the box seats.  He had just torn the ligament in his left elbow.

After a month of complete rest didn’t produce any improvement in John’s throwing arm, Dodgers team doctor Frank Jobe made his own unorthodox pitch.  He proposed surgery to replace the torn ligament with a tendon taken from Tommy John’s right wrist.

Doctor Jobe had some hope that it might work because he had done a similar procedure on the ankle of a patient afflicted with polio.  Still, he didn’t give Tommy John a glowing prognosis — he told the pitcher that there was maybe a one percent chance that he’d be able to resume pitching.

The doctor explained how the graft would be performed:  Holes would be drilled in the ulna and humerus bones, through which the harvested tendon would be laced in a figure-eight pattern.  As Dr. Jobe later recalled, John looked him in the eye and said, “Let’s do it.”

The original Tommy John surgery (now known to the medical community as Ulnar Collateral Ligament Reconstruction) was performed on September 25, 1974.  It was followed by about 18 months of rehabilitation, which is the part of the process for which “T.J.” does deserve credit.  He worked at it diligently; part of his rehab was playing catch with his wife Sally.

In the 1976 season he returned to the mound, and on his third start of that season, Tommy John got his 125th career victory.  He continued pitching until 1989, when he was 46 years old, and by then he had amassed 288 career wins.  That is the seventh-most of all time by a left-handed pitcher.  Well over half of his wins — 164 — came after the surgery.

In the years since 1974, Dr. Jobe and other surgeons have performed tens of thousands of UCL reconstructions.  Some of the Major League pitchers who have undergone the procedure are John Smoltz, Stephen Strasburg, Chris Carpenter, David Wells, Adam Wainwright and Brian Wilson.  Prospects for successful recovery are now in the range of 90 percent.

So far, no pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery has made it into the Hall of Fame, including Tommy John.  The highest tally of votes he ever received from the Baseball Writers is 31.7%, despite having been a four-time All-Star with 46 career shutouts.

Based on his baseball accomplishments, Tommy John deserves to be recognized for more than a procedure that was performed on his left elbow.  Doctor Frank Jobe probably deserves to have that medical procedure named for him, and not for his patient.

As it happens, this July the doctor is going to be honored for his contributions to baseball  by the Hall of Fame.  Tommy John plans to attend the ceremony.

On my list, this ranks a lot higher than a hot dog stand.
(Photo by Sally Reeder)

There are lots of reasons to make lists, but I’m going to resist the impulse to list them.  Well, maybe I could just mention a couple, OK?

First, jotting down the things one needs to accomplish on a given day or week helps organize the allotted time.  The second reason is that it’s just so darn satisfying to draw a line through each task when it’s completed:  “snake the drains” — check!

As much as I like lists, I’m not enthusiastic about having other people make them for me.  Travel magazines do that regularly, with headlines like “The Fifty Hottest New Destinations” or “Where to Go Next”.  There’s a best-selling book called 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.

As the title grimly states, it’s a bucket list; things to do before you  kick the bucket.  I’ve thumbed through my copy, and it’s pretty clear to me that I’m not going to make it.  I’ve been to a lot of places in the world, but I’ve only seen, oh, maybe a quarter of the places that author Patricia Schultz thinks I need to see to make my life complete.

But I’m OK with that.  I’ll probably never make it to the hot dog joint in Chicago that she raves about, but I have been to Paris.  And by the way, why should a diner and the City of Light each count as one of the thousand on her list?  There are at least a dozen things in Paris that I would personally rank above any ’dawg.

Maybe you wouldn’t, though.  For all I know, you’d much rather have the Everything-On-It than visit the Louvre.  That’s what’s tricky about these “oh, you must” lists.  Everybody has different ideas of what constitutes a satisfying travel experience.

Several of us went to Colonial Williamsburg together (it’s in the book — check!)  Some in our group were fascinated by the demonstrations of life in the 17th century by people in period costume:  “Most of our clothing is made of wool, which is spun on wheels like this one.”  On the other hand, some of us were less enthusiastic.  After about forty minutes of lectures from faux colonists, one friend muttered, “I get it.  Let’s go play golf.”

The truth is, he’d rather play golf than almost anything, so his wish list might be a lot different than yours.  And if your idea of a dream vacation is non-stop shopping, your list would look very different than mine.

My wife has a novel approach to travel lists.  Instead of a bucket list, she has compiled hers after the fact, when she’s had experiences associated with the places she’s been.  For example, she noted that she ate Maine lobster in Maine, drank Scotch in Scotland, had French fries in France.

Many of her entries seem to be food-and-drink related:  ate Black Forest cake in the Black Forest, had a Coors beer at Coors Field (Denver).  Several are more observational:  saw African violets blooming in Africa, was in St. Patrick’s Cathedral (NYC) on St. Patrick’s Day.

The thing I like about Sally’s travel list is that it emphasizes fulfillment, not falling short.  She may not make it to 1,000 “must-sees”, but she’s having fun along the way.  And maybe I should put Hershey, Pennsylvania, on my list so that someday it will make it onto hers.

Charles Pinckney doesn’t show emotion during this argument with the relatives, but he’s reaching for his dagger.

Back in the days when arguments were settled with duels, it’s remarkable that a bunch of guys named Charles Pinckney didn’t shoot each other.  They were all related and were all active in the political life of South Carolina, but somehow they didn’t see eye to eye.

Perhaps the best-known of the Charles Pinckneys is famous for being obscure.  He is sometimes referred to as “the forgotten founding father” because of his role in the Constitutional Convention.  Even though he doesn’t get the recognition of, say, George Washington or James Madison or Alexander Hamilton, it’s known that Charles Pinckney had a lot to say at the convention.  Among other things, he introduced the important clause in article VI that forbids a religious test for any public office.

In later years he claimed to have submitted a draft — the Pinckney Plan — that was the basis for the final Constitution.  Nowadays, most historians sort of roll their eyes when the Pinckney Plan gets mentioned.  No copy still exists, if one ever did.

As mentioned, he was active at the Convention, and deserves credit for being among the framers.  He wasn’t the only signer of the Constitution by that name, however.  An even more forgotten founding father was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney; they were second cousins.

Cotesworth’s father was… yes, Charles Pinckney, a South Carolina chief justice.  That guy — let’s call him Justice Pinckney — was the uncle of Colonel Charles Pinckney, who was the father of Charles “Article VI” Pinckney.

Things must have been a little strained between the signer of the U.S. Constitution and his dad, because back during the Revolutionary War, the Colonel had switched sides.  Originally a leader of those fighting the British, he changed his tune to “God Save the King”, becoming a Loyalist.

Charles “Article VI” Pinckney supported a strong central government and, with his cousin Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, was a leader in the Federalist party.  As such, Charles was elected governor of South Carolina several times.

Around 1795, though, he followed his father’s example and changed sides, abandoning the Federalists and getting cozy with Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans.

Meanwhile, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney remained a staunch Federalist.  He was John Adams’ running mate in the election of 1800, and the Federalists’ presidential candidate in 1804 and 1808.  Charles “Governor” Pinckney worked to defeat his cousin, and the rift grew so bitter that they never spoke to each other again.

Governor (also senator and U.S. representative) Charles Pinckney died in 1824, but before that he must have quarreled with his son who was, thankfully, not named Charles.  He was Henry L. Pinckney, who became a prominent politician and newspaper editor.  Henry’s opinions, shared by others, ultimately led to South Carolina’s secession from the United States, of which his biological father had been a founding father.

There may be other explanations for the broken crockery being found at Snee Farm, the ancestral plantation of the Pinckneys — but I’m thinking food fights at the very least.

No kidding — when I held my hand in front of my face, this is what I saw.

“The lights will be going out in ten minutes, so if you want to use the restroom, this would be a good — “

The voice on the microphone was drowned out by the sound of several hundred chairs being pushed back and that many people rushing to the banquet room exits.  It had occurred to all of us simultaneously that even something as mundane as slipping out to “freshen up” would be impossible in total darkness.

This event was arranged by a charitable organization called Foundation Fighting Blindness.  It honored our friend Mary Romo, who is herself visually impaired but volunteers at the Braille Institute and at schools to help others whose eyesight is limited or gone.

The unique aspect of this dinner was that it would be served in the dark, giving diners some sense of the daily challenges faced by those who are sightless.  Even the servers at this banquet were blind.

Our server came to the table before the lights were turned off, asking each of us individually if we had any dietary restrictions.  It probably gave him a chance to recognize us by voice, which would be helpful to him during the serving process.

There were ropes and stanchions around the room which allowed the servers to find their way to and from the kitchen, and around the banquet hall.  I noticed that a peg had been taped to the back of the chair of the woman who sat to my right.  Presumably this helped the server locate her as #1; he would work around in a counterclockwise direction, so I would be the last served at our table.

After we all made it back from the restrooms, the lights were turned off, and you could hear a few gasps around the room at how dark it was.  Seriously — it was black in there.  I held my hand in front of my face and couldn’t see it.

The event organizers had sealed off all sources of light, however faint.  Even the illuminated exit signs were blacked out.  The planners had made arrangements with local authorities to have special marshals on hand in case of an emergency.  I believe they were wearing those infared night-vision goggles, but as I said, I couldn’t even see my own hand.

When the meal arrived, there were guesses around the table about what we were eating.  I’m fairly certain it was chicken florentine, broccoli and scalloped potatoes, but I’m ashamed to admit that I was going more by feel than by taste.

Oh, at first I tried to cut bites with my knife and fork.  Things were squirting around my plate, though, and possibly into the middle of the table for all I know.  Eventually I realized that if I was going to get any nourishment, my hands would need to be more directly involved.  Fortunately, it was impossible for anyone to take incriminating photos of me fumbling with my food like a two-year-old.

After about a half-hour, the lights were turned back on; the conversation was subdued for a bit because we were all processing the implications of what we had just experienced.

In the dark, we had seen things we tend to take for granted.  You might say that when we temporarily had our vision blocked out, our eyes were opened.  And with the lights back on, I could also see that my suit would definitely need to be dry cleaned.

Samuel F.B. Morse, Self-Portrait (1812 — he was 21)  National Portrait Gallery, Washington

We can only imagine what Jedidiah Morse thought when his son Samuel announced, “Dad, I’ve decided to become an artist.”  There is no historical record of how that conversation went, so we don’t know if the father snarled, “What!?  You have any idea what it cost to put you through Yale?  You were Phi Beta Kappa — and now you want to throw all that away?”

As an occupation, artist was not a common road to riches in early 19th-century America (still isn’t, for that matter).  Young Samuel Finley Breese Morse went off to study painting in England, though, and when he returned in 1815, he managed to support himself despite the widespread lack of interest in the kind of historical subjects he personally favored.

The only real market was portraits, and let’s give him credit — Morse cranked out good ones.  He painted former president John Adams and was commissioned to do a portrait of president James Monroe, as well as Revolutionary War hero, the Marquis de Lafayette.  By 1826, Morse had become the presiding officer of the National Academy of Design.

Jedidiah Morse died that same year, and he probably went out saying to anyone who would listen, “Didn’t I tell you my son had talent?  I always knew he’d make me proud.”  What dad never knew was that his son would gain far greater fame, but not as an artist.

Samuel went back to Europe in 1830 to sharpen his painting skills, but on the return voyage in 1832, Morse met a fellow passenger who was talking about electromagnetism.  Those conversations inspired Morse; he saw the possibility of using pulses of electric current to send messages over wires.

It isn’t quite accurate to say that Samuel F.B. Morse invented the telegraph, since crude versions of it had been around for almost a hundred hears.  In 1746, for example, a French scientist named Nollet got a couple hundred monks into a giant circle and wired them together.  When he discharged electricity from Leyden jars, those monks got the shocking message.

Anyway, Morse did come up with his single-wire telegraph in the mid-1830s, but the challenge was getting a signal to travel more than a few hundred yards.  He got help on that from New York University chemistry professor Leonard Gale; Morse was teaching art at NYU at the time.  Gale and Morse figured out how to put relays into the system, allowing telegraphic impulses to be sent over long distances.

Those signals were developed into a code so that their meaning could be interpreted.  Morse worked on this with a machinist named Alfred Vail.  Historians agree that Morse never, ever said, “I couldn’t have done it without you, Alfred.  Let’s call it ‘The Vail Code’ .”

The first public demonstration of Morse’s telegraph was on May 24, 1844, when a message was sent from the Supreme Court chamber in Washington, D.C., to a train station in Baltimore.  Morse tapped out “What hath God wrought?”, perhaps the only time he shared credit for the invention of the telegraph.

Ten years later there were 23,000 miles of telegraph wire in operation.  Samuel Morse’s second career secured his place in history.  His first career had ended in 1837; he never completed another painting in the remaining 35 years of his life.

Parachute + Sailing = Parasailing

When my high school geometry teacher admonished us, “This is important, people!” I probably should have paid closer attention.  If I had, now I wouldn’t be choking back tears of shame every time someone stops me on the street and says, “Hey, you can’t remember how to calculate the hypotenuse of a right triangle, can you?”

Oh, I remember it had to do with a guy named Pythagoras and some theorem he had, but if I had known how often it would come up in conversation, I would have taken the time to memorize it.

In my defense, I’ve always been more of a words guy than a numbers guy: I can spell hypotenuse and can define it (“the side of a right triangle opposite the right angle”), I just can’t solve for it.  when I was a kid in school, I guess I thought that when I grew up and people stopped me on the street, they would be asking, “Excuse me, sir, can you tell me the difference between a prefix and a suffix?”

Does that ever come up?  Never.  But questions about triangles and how to solve for X — on average, I get those from complete strangers about twice a week.

Well, if you’re more of a numbers person and keep getting hit out of the blue with inquiries about the etymology of certain words, let me save you some embarrassment.

Let’s say your little nephew demands to know why so many words start with the prefix “para”.  You can start by acknowledging that there certainly are a lot of them:  paradise, paralysis, paragraph, paranoid, paradox… “Yeah,” he interrupts, “and parasite and parable and paramedic.”

Smile patiently; give him a moment to rattle off paradigm and parallel and parathyroid if necessary.  Eventually he’ll pause and let you explain that there are actually several meanings for those “para” prefixes.

Most seem to have origins in Greek, and have the meaning at, next to, or side by side.  Examples of those are parallel, paragraph, paradigm and parathyroid.  Other loanwords from Greek convey beyond or past; paradox, for instance, literally meant “beyond belief”.

In English, the prefix para became associated with occupations that are subsidiary to professions that require more training, or perhaps have higher status.  A paralegal does tasks that assist an attorney, but is not licensed to practice law.  Similarly, a paramedic may truly be a life saver, but serves that role in the absence of a doctor.

A paratrooper, however, is not a trooper with lesser credentials.  That word is a combined form of parachute and trooper.  In the same vein, parasailing combines parachute and sailing.

Your nephew will be impressed when you tell him that the word parachute actually comes from two French words that mean “guard against” and “falling”.  You might want to add that a parasol guards against… yes, the sun.

If you want, you could enlighten your nephew that parakeet and Paraguay and paradise are derived from other words.  Or maybe not.  You don’t want to overdo it and, you know, exceed the parameters of friendly discussion.

A view of Old Lisbon, painted on tile

“This reminds me of Korea.”

That’s what the lieutenant said as I drove him through a rural section of Utah in our military vehicle.  I assumed he meant Korea (the country) and not Chorea (disease characterized by jerky movements).

“It looks like this?” I asked, not having been there.  “Well, not exactly — just those hills over there are sort of… I don’t know, something about it…”  He trailed off and then changed the subject.

That was decades ago, but in the intervening years I’ve had similar experiences:  There’s something about a place that momentarily conjures up memories of another place.  They aren’t identical, but one is somehow evocative of the other.  Maybe I’m the only person who ever thought so, but Lisbon reminded me of San Francisco.

The two cities do have some physical similarities; both are built on hilly terrain.  Narrow, winding streets in Lisbon lead down to a bay — the Portuguese capital is located at the mouth of the Tagus River where it empties into the Atlantic.  Lisbon’s bay isn’t as vast as San Francisco’s, but there is a long, orange suspension bridge that crosses it.

Both cities have fine views (miradouros is what they call them in Portuguese) and expansive parks.  In one of Lisbon’s, we saw a young couple having sex, oblivious to the other park visitors all around them.  One might expect to see that sort of thing in San Francisco, too.

Well, some or all of these factors made the connection in my brain, but there are several ways in which Lisbon is distinctive.  The main one is the tile.

It’s everywhere:  The exterior walls of buildings are covered with it (and interior walls, for that matter).  Sidewalks and fountains and even some of the old streets are made of ceramic tile.  The tiles vary in size, but often are 4″x 4″, or 8″x 8″, like you may have in your bathroom.  However, the tile in your bathroom probably isn’t a mural of battle scenes or saints or landscapes.

Not all of the tile in Lisbon is representational art; much of it is in geometric patterns — interlocking chains and so forth.  Apartments buildings that are six or seven stories high sometimes alternate:  A couple of stories will have what looks like lacework, and then there will be one that depicts a voyage by one of Portugal’s famed explorers.

The tiles are in all colors, but the favorite seems to be a specific shade of blue (see photo).  I’m not an expert on all the degrees of the color wheel, but let’s call it deep azure.  That works as a sort of mnemonic, since in Portuguese, the tiles are called azulejos.

Another distinctive feature of Lisbon is fado music, which is melancholy songs about fate and lost love and regrets.  If you go to one of the fado clubs or restaurants, you may also have regrets about the high cover charge.

Console yourself with Lisbon’s butter, though; I don’t know what their secret is, but it’s the best I’ve had anywhere in the world.  Just don’t expect to put it on sourdough bread — that’s a specialty of San Francisco.

Sipped, not gulped.

There are hundreds of different combinations of ingredients served in bars around the world, but no cocktail bespeaks sophistication and elegance quite so much as the martini.  Of course, there are almost that many opinions about what constitutes a proper martini.

James Bond, for instance, famously insisted that his martinis be “shaken, not stirred.”  Those who favor the opposite — stirred — claim that shaking the mixture “bruises” the gin, which seems to mean that the gin tastes more bitter.

The “shaken” people retort that their preferred method gets the drink colder; “stirred” people begrudgingly agree, but claim that shaking a martini makes it look cloudier in the glass, due to air and ice fragments.

Martini enthusiasts on both sides of the shaken/stirred debate would agree that what James Bond drank was not a martini, because he ordered his with (shudder) vodka.  Purists are adamant that a true martini is made only with gin — well, and some dry vermouth, garnished with an olive or two, or with a twist of lemon peel.

Who invented the drink, and when, is also the subject of controversy, but it’s safe to say that eloquent toasts have been made with raised martinis since the early 20th century.  They gained popularity in the U.S. during Prohibition (1920-1933) partly because bathtub gin was in more plentiful supply than other kinds of booze.

The recipe for a martini in its introductory phase called for — brace yourselves, drinkers; this might trigger your gag reflex — one part gin to one part vermouth.  By the 1950s, the gin-to-vermouth ratio was commonly 3 to 1.  That’s how it would be served in a bar unless the customer specified otherwise.

“A very dry martini” is a way to let the bartender know to go easy on the vermouth; others, who like the proportions to be more like 50 to 1, will order “an extremely dry martini.”

According to the book “Vintage Cocktails” by Susan Waggoner and Robert Markel, Sir Winston Churchill made his favorite drink by pouring gin “and glancing briefly at a bottle of vermouth.”

A variation on that recipe, according to authors William and Mary Morris, was the one favored by Alfred Hitchcock.  He supposedly combined a well-chilled glass, five jiggers of gin stirred with ice, and a bottle of extra-dry vermouth, which he tapped lightly against the cocktail shaker three times.

If you’re not into vermouth — and clearly, almost no one is — it’s a fortified wine (additional alcohol added) that is flavored wtih herbs and roots and shrubs and whatnot.  In the context of vermouth, dry is an antonym for sweet, not wet.  There is such a thing as sweet vermouth, incidentally; it’s used in Manhattans, another popular cocktail.

The leading international brand of vermouth is Martini & Rossi, which may have contributed to the misunderstanding in Florence, Italy, when my wife ordered a martini.  The waiter came back with an old-fashioned glass… yeah, you’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?  It was filled with Martini & Rossi vermouth.  Although she managed to drink it, it sort of left Sally feeling shaken, not stirred.

J.A.D. Ingres, “Joan of Arc at the Coronation of King Charles VII in Reims Cathedral” (1854) –
The Louvre, Paris

It looked like the long-running war was going to get capped at 85 years, but in 1422, Henry V of England and Charles VI of France both died.  That pushed the restart button.

Henry was succeeded as King of England by his nine-month-old son Henry VI, whose royal proclamations included things like “na-na-na-na” and “goo-goo”.  He was advised (if that’s the right word) by two uncles who happened to be scheming against each other.

The situation in France wasn’t much better.  You’ll recall that King Charles VI had disavowed his own heirs and, under the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) acknowledged Henry V as his successor.  The rumor was that Charles’s legitimate heir was, well, illegitimate, the result of an affair the queen had with her brother-in-law.

That all seemed pretty harsh to the Dauphin (the title given to the heir-apparent of the French throne).  He aspired to become Charles VII, but got chased out of Paris while civil war raged in France.  The Dauphin, who was a teenager, set up his palace in a two-bedroom condo south of the Loire Valley; his “kingdom” extended approximately from his garage down to the liquor store at the corner.

Into this mess stepped the most remarkable figure of the entire Hundred Years’ War:  Joan of Arc.  A peasant girl, she talked her way into an audience with the Dauphin and informed him that through visions, God had instructed her to lead the French army to victory and get the Dauphin crowned king.

Joan must have been incredibly charismatic.  Think about it:  If you were in the Dauphin’s position and a 17-year-old girl tells you that fantastic story, would you be inclined to say, “Great!  Go for it!”  It could be argued that at that point, the Dauphin Charles didn’t have much left to lose, so why not give her a shot.

Anyway, he let Joan lead a small army; they headed off to Orléans, which had been besieged by the English for several months.  Within a few days of their arrival in April, 1429, Joan and her troops defeated the English, lifting the Siege of Orléans.  That victory got the French fired up again, and is now considered the turning point in the Hundred Years’ War.

Jeanne d’Arc, as she is known in France, then led her soldiers to victory in other battles and was present in Reims when the Dauphin was crowned Charles VII.  Thanks to “the Maid of Orléans”, the French army was energized and eager to win back territory held by the English.

Unfortunately for Joan, in May of 1430 she was captured by troops loyal to the Duke of Burgundy, who eventually sold her to the English.  When the subject of ransoming this unusual prisoner of war came up, Charles VII (who wouldn’t have been king without her help) was apparently hiding under the bed.  Joan was alone, on her own.  The English gave her a show trial before burning her at the stake on May 30, 1431.

The war went on for another couple of decades, basically ending after the Battle of Castillon on July 17, 1453.  This enabled the English to turn their full attention to fighting each other again, notably in the War of the Roses (1455-1485).  No official treaty between the French and the English was ever signed.

The English had their king; the French had theirs.  The English did continue to hold Calais until 1558 — which means that when it was finally over, things were left pretty much as they had been at the outset of the Hundred Years’ War.

Edward III of England:
He started it.

When the Hundred Years’ War finally ended in 1453, the weary combatants looked at each other and said, “Where has the time gone? The Middle Ages are almost over.” Or, more likely, they said, “What was that about?”

Later generations of historians have examined the factors that contributed to all that combat, but then they pretend not to notice that the Hundred Years’ War actually lasted more than 100 years; it began in 1337.

Since we lack the space (and enthusiasm) to review the entire war, let’s just take a look at some colorful characters and events that made the highlight reel, so to speak.

In a nutshell, the Hundred Years’ War was really a series of wars fought between the English and the French. Mostly it was about who the rightful king was, and there were lots of applicants for that job. That’s why the long-running war between England and France was sometimes interrupted by wars between countrymen: Two English armies fighting each other, for instance, to win the chance for their leader to claim he was King of France.

Anyway, the guy who started it all was Edward III of England.  He had become the British monarch when his mother Isabella, sometimes known as “the she-wolf of France”, led an invasion against her own husband, Edward II of England — it was a troubled marriage, apparently.

Because of his mother’s French ancestry, Edward III thought he was entitled to be King of France, even though the French already had a guy with a crown.  His name was Philip VI, and naturally he took offense when Edward III sent armies into northwest France to stake his claim.

Edward began the offensive in 1337, capturing Brittany and Normandy.  His troops won a number of important battles, including one in 1346 at Crécy.  The English introduced longbows to the battlefield, sending a lethal rain of arrows at the French infantrymen, whose armor was fashionable but not particularly arrow-resistant.  Philip VI lost a lot of relatives and soldiers that day.

Pressing on, Edward III  had control of about 25% of France by the mid-1300s.  His holdings began to wane, however, when the so-called Black Death (Bubonic Plague) hit Europe.  It’s hard to imagine the devastation it caused — estimates of those who died in the years from 1347-1351 range from 30-50% of the population.  Obviously, that hindered army recruitment efforts.

Edward III made a strategic blunder by dying (not of plague) in 1377.  He left several heirs who all seemed to think they were qualifed to be King of England.  They fought with each other for the next few decades, until Henry V won the title.  Henry was the subject of one of Shakespeare’s historical plays, and either looked like Sir Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branagh, depending on which movie you saw.

The army of Henry V won a big one at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.  That resulted in the French king Charles VI (a.k.a. Charles the Mad) disinheriting his own kids and designating Henry V to be his successor.  That might have resolved the whole mess, except that in August of 1422, Henry died of dysentery at the age of 35.  Charles VI died that October.  So if Henry had lived two months longer, he would have been the king of France, fulfilling the dream that had begun with his great-grandfather Edward III.

Instead, the Hundred Years’ War continued… and in the next blog post, this topic will, too.