Category: Towle Sarah

Ziryab: the Refugee Who Was an Instant Sensation

2/22/2023

Sarah Towle
Putting the Story back in History

Do you ever stop to think how your everyday life has been shaped by people from the past? Well, if you play the guitar, brush your teeth, or eat dessert after a meal, you owe a debt of gratitude to a Muslim musician who lived twelve hundred years ago.

Abul-Hasan, a commoner born in Baghdad around 789 A.D., had a gift for song that so pleased the ruling caliph he gave him the name “Ziryab,” meaning “Blackbird." Ziryab’s natural musical talent made other musicians jealous, however. So, when the caliph died in 813, they exiled the "Blackbird," sending him to wander the Islamic world for a decade. He performed wherever he went and picked up customs from the people he met.

Ziryab eventually found his way to Al-Andalus (today’s Andalusia, Spain). Its ruler loved music. In fact, he valued musicians above all other professionals. He welcomed the refugee. He offered him asylum. Ziryab was an instant sensation. He introduced his instrument, the Baghdadi oud, to his new neighbors. Then, adding an extra string to his oud, he ignited the evolution of the Spanish guitar.

He established the first-ever music conservatory in Córdoba, which gave rise to the genre of Andalusian classical music--musiqa al-ala—that is still a popular in Morocco today.

But Ziryab's influence didn't stop with music. He transformed Córdoban society as well. He taught locals how to make deodorant and toothpaste. He instructed women in how to shape eyebrows, cut their hair into bangs, remove unwanted body hair. He inspired men to shorten their hair, as well, and to shave daily. And instead of piling his food onto platters, as was then the custom, Ziryab ate his meals atop a clean tablecloth and in three distinct courses: a soup, a main dish, and a dessert.

So each time you sit down to a three-course dinner, strum your six-string guitar, brush your teeth, or tidy your hair, you are following in the footsteps of a Muslim musician who lived 1,200 years ago.

While he had a talent for music, Ziryab’s innovations covered many fields, including the art of makeup and fashionable clothing. He promoted the idea that certain clothing should be reserved for certain times of the year in order to reflect the colors of the seasons.

In music, Ziryab was the first to introduce the lute (Al-U'd) to Spain and Europe in general. He is credited with the addition of the fifth bass string to it which later paved the way for the development of the guitar. He also established the first conservatory in the world that included the teaching of harmony and composition.

Sarah Towle is an award-winning digital storyteller of immersive tales for educational tourism. With her latest project for secondary school students—the History Hero BLAST—she puts the Story back in History, bringing a fictional flair to factual tales of inspirational figures from around the world and throughout time. A blog and future podcast, the HHBLAST welcomes the participation of published and aspiring authors, including young writers. Click here to find out more Ziryab and other History Heroes and about how to bring the HHBLAST—and Sarah—to your school!

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Mary Anning: Fossil Hunter

3/17/2022

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Sarah Towle
Putting the Story back in History

Have you ever heard the proverbial saying, “every cloud has a silver lining”? Well, this was certainly the case for the accidental paleontologist, Mary Anning.

Mary Anning was born May 21,1799 to a working-class family living on the southern coast of England. Life was tough for the Annings. Short of food and creature comforts, they also suffered through frequent storms so severe they sometimes had to climb out the second-floor windows of their home to escape flooding.

The Annings weren’t the only things displaced by the angry sea. Over the centuries, rain and wind had washed away layers of earth on the cliffs near their home, exposing petrified bones as well as animal skeletons imprinted in stone. At just 12 years old, Mary found a four-foot skull. Within months, she’d uncovered the entire creature. It turned out to be the fossilized remains of an Ichthyosaur and when a London collector bought it for 23 pounds (more than $2K today!), she was hooked.

Mary even prospected for fossils in winter, when storms raged. It was dangerous work. She narrowly missed being crushed by landslides many times. (Sadly, her trusty terrier Tray was not so lucky.) She found fossils of ammonite and belemnite, which she sold to summer tourists, possibly inspiring the tongue twister, “She sells sea shells by the sea shore.”

But it was Mary’s keen eye for the unique and remarkable that caused her reputation to grow. She constructed the first complete Plesiosaurus as well as a flying reptile called Pterosaur. Despite her limited education, she kept up with all the scientific journals and often wrote to them, challenging findings she did not agree with. Famous archaeologists and paleontologists from Britain and Europe flocked to her Dorset doorstep. But being a woman and working class, Mary never gained acceptance within the all-male, upper-class scientific circles of her day.

Though she did not receive the recognition due her in life, Mary Anning is regarded today as one of the most influential women in the history of science. Her contributions to the field of paleontology remain unsurpassed.

It is said that every cloud brings a silver lining. And, indeed, the wind and rain brought fortune and fame to this accidental female scientist and fossil hunter of the Victorian era.

Mary Anning with her dog, Tray, painted circa 1842.

Above: Letter and drawing from Mary Anning announcing the discovery of a fossil animal now known as Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus, 26 December 1823. Right: Lyme Regis, where Mary lived, was once under water, 200 million years ago. That is why there are so many pre-historic fossils of underwater creatures found there. Wikimedia Commons

This is a fossil of a Plesiosaurus, an extinct marine reptile which lived approximately 135 million to 120 million years ago – from the Early to the Middle Jurassic Period. It was first discovered in the winter of 1823 by Mary Anning. It was named the following year by William Conybeare. The name of this reptile means “almost lizard.”

This YouTube will share some of the interesting information Mary Anning was able to learn by the study of dinosaur poop!

Sarah Towle is an award-winning digital storyteller of immersive tales for educational tourism. With her latest project for secondary school students—the History Hero BLAST—she puts the Story back in History, bringing a fictional flair to factual tales of inspirational figures from around the world and throughout time. A blog and future podcast, the HHBLAST welcomes the participation of published and aspiring authors, including young writers. Click here to find out more about how to bring the HHBLAST—and Sarah—to your school!

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Laika the Space Dog

5/20/2020

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Sarah Towle
Putting the Story back in History

On November 3, 1957, a tiny capsule rocketed into space. Inside was a diminutive, 14-pound, black and white dog named Laika. And when her spaceship pierced the Earth’s atmosphere, she became the first creature in history to make it to outer space. No small feat for a stray that only days before had been fighting for scraps on the streets of Moscow!

Laika’s unlikely journey was borne out of the race to prove that human spaceflight was possible. Just a month earlier, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union—Cold War nemesis of the United States—launched into orbit history’s first satellite, Sputnik 1. That’s when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev insisted that his scientists perform a second test—this time to determine if a living being could survive the journey to the stars.

The mission was too dangerous to risk a human life, so the Soviets decided to train a stray dog to be Russia’s first cosmonaut. Nine days before the scheduled launch, they chose Laika for her gentle disposition and natural beauty. If she was to make history, they reasoned, she would need to be photogenic.

Laika did make history. Monitors followed the sound of her tiny beating heart all the way into Earth’s orbit. But there was a problem: the Soviets had not worked out how to get Laika back. She perished, circling the earth, most likely from the profound heat created by the capsule’s firing rockets.

Laika’s journey sparked not one but two historic advances: the era of human space exploration, and the animal rights movement, particularly in scientific testing. She became a global folk hero. Her sacrifice inspired poems and novels. She was featured on stamps and coins, and memorialized in a Moscow statue. Her fame ensured that going forward efforts would be made to protect the lives of canine cosmonauts.

Sure enough, on August 19, 1960, two more Moscow strays, Belka and Strelka, became the first living creatures to make the round trip to space.

Laika the Soviet Space Dog will always be remembered as the first living being to boldly go where no one had gone before. Laika was a pioneer for humanity.

Laika was launched into orbit with one meal and a seven-day oxygen supply. Wikimedia Commons

Shown here in her space harness, Laika was launched into orbit with one meal and a seven-day oxygen supply. Wikimedia Commons

The story of Laika (above, in a postage stamp from the Emirate of Ajman, now part of the UAE) lives on today in websites, YouTube videos, poems, and children’s books.

Starting in 1957, Soviet allies, such as Hungary (right), Romania (above), Albania, Poland and North Korea, issued Laika postage stamps. Other countries soon joined them. (Wikimedia Commons )

Sarah Towle is an award-winning digital storyteller of immersive tales for educational tourism. With her latest project for secondary school students—the History Hero BLAST—she puts the Story back in History, bringing a fictional flair to factual tales of inspirational figures from around the world and throughout time. A blog and future podcast, the HHBLAST welcomes the participation of published and aspiring authors, including young writers. Click here to find out more about how to bring the HHBLAST—and Sarah—to your school!

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Ziryab: the Refugee Who Was an Instant Sensation

Mary Anning: Fossil Hunter

Laika the Space Dog

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