Hello! I’m rewatching the Tudors TV show, & one of the points brought up w/ Henry VIII is that should Catherine of Aragon acquiesce to the Papal grant of annulment, their daughter Mary would be considered illegitimate. But modern Catholic ecclesiastical law recognizes that in the case of annulled marriages, the relationship was still a putative marriage & thus any offspring of the union are legitimate. When did that change happen? Was it always there and Henry et al not aware of it?

This was actually still the case at that time. Henry didn't necessarily have to make Mary illegitimate; he initially was willing to keep her as heir presumptive and to keep her in the line of succession once he had a son with Anne, as he thought he would. He became intransigent after years of wrangling and fighting to achieve his goals, and Mary's own stubbornness in acknowledging that her parents' marriage hadn't been real didn't help.

New Year Greetings from the Sydney Botanical Gardens, Australia, in 1908.

(Royal Australian Historical Society)

Norwegian schoolchildren planting trees, c. 1900-1904.

(Nasjonalbiblioteket)

Australian family picnickers on the beach, 1929.

(State Library of New South Wales)

Above: Richie Campbell as Joseph Nightingale in “The Frankenstein Chronicles. (ITV)

The name of this baby has unfortunately been lost to history, but the cuteness certainly hasn’t! Dallas, Texas, c. 1889-1890.

(SMU Central University Library)

Ramsay Bader was a tank driver in the 147th (Essex Yeomanry) Field Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery of the British Army. As part of the 147th, Ramsay Bader participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6th 1944. Any mention of Ramsay Bader is incomplete without also mentioning his wife Lilian Bader (née Bailey), a Black British woman, who served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and reached the rank of Acting Corporal. Lilian Bailey and Ramsay Bader married during the war in 1943.

On the eve of D-Day, Lilian remembered: "I didn't know if Ramsay was alive or dead... I remember kneeling in the chapel and praying like blazes that Ramsay would be saved. It was a terrible time because you knew some people were going to be killed, and Ramsay couldn't swim! He hated water. That's what worried me more than anything, but he came through." (Quoted in The Independent)

Ramsay Bader survived and saw the war through to the fall of Nazi Germany. So did Lilian. They would go on to live long lives, Ramsay passing away in 1992 and Lilian quite recently in 2015. Together they are a testament to the experience of the Black British community during WW2 and there are many stories just like theirs lost to history or just waiting to be recovered.

(africansinyorkshireproject.com/caption by /u/Bernardito)

201 years ago today.

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the battle of Chacabuco, February 12 1817, one of the pivotal battles of the Wars of Independence in South America. The battle of Chacabuco was the first step in securing the independence of Chile after the disastrous set-backs in previous years. After crossing the Andes in an impressive feat, the Army of the Andes (Ejército de los Andes) under General José de San Martín won a tremendous victory with an army consisting of soldiers from the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata and exiled soldiers from Chile.

What few people know is that the Army of the Andes consisted of almost 40 % freedmen, slaves, and runaway slaves, as well as men of mixed race. Slaves and freedmen all over South America participated in the Wars of Independence but have been overlooked if not downright ignored in the modern historiography of most countries involved, despite them having been heavily praised at the time. It is only in recent time that a revaluation of the participation of slaves and other men of African descent have been done and has resulted in such brilliant pieces of scholarship as Peter Blanchard’s Under the Flags of Freedom: Slave Soldiers and the Wars of Independence in Spanish South America (2008, UoP Press).

Top: Litography of the Battle of Chacabuco by Theodore Géricault.

Bottom: Actors portraying slave soldiers in the Army of the Andes prepares to shoot a reenactment of the battle of Chacabuco for the 2010 movie Revolución: El cruce de los Andes.

(Wikimedia Commons/Urgente24)

Girls package cigarettes in a factory in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana. Using tobacco grown in Ghana, the factory could produce 160 packets of twenty cigarettes every minute. January 1957.

(The National Archives UK)

Two African American soldiers talking to a representative of the American Red Cross Home Service. The American Red Cross Home Service gave comfort and reassurance to American soldiers who were anxious about the welfare of their families at home. According to the original caption, one of these men said his wife was not getting her allotment from the government. September 1918.

(US National Archives)

African-American band in Oxford (Ohio) Armistice Day Parade 1918.

(Miami University Library)

Washington Jazz Band, 1930s. Jackie Washington was a singer, guitarist, pianist, born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on the 12th of November, 1919, and died in Hamilton on the 27th of June 2009; He received an honorary DH from McMaster University in 2003. At five he began to sing for social functions in Hamilton's black community. Under the influence of the Mills Brothers, he and his brothers Ormsby, Harold and Doc performed 1930-8 as the Washingtons in Southern Ontario dance halls.

(Local History & Archives Hamilton)

A Dental Assistant attends a patient at the Dental Unit, Princess Margaret Hospital, Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika (modern day Tanzania), c. 1959-1960.

(National Archives UK)

Sheet bailing crew working in Hopewell, Virginia. July 1955.

(The Library of Virginia)

Street scene in Port Antonio, Jamaica, 1899.

(Field Museum)

Portrait of an African American woman, c. 1855.

(George Eastman Museum)

A group of South Africans near Durban, c. 1901.

(LSE Library)