CP Historical Figures Draft (Round 14) (pick anytime)

[GirlySports]

Five-Hole selects Nicolaus Copernicus in the category Inventor / Scientist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus

He will fill in more details later

[Itse]

Wow, Round 2 already?

Okay, just so I can pick a Finn , and to take the word soldier literally. Not necessary historic, but legendary none the less.

In the Soldier category, team HeroQuest picks the White Death, Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä.



Simo Häyhä (December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002), nicknamed "White Death" (Russian: Белая Смерть, Belaya Smert; Finnish: Valkoinen kuolema) by the Soviet army, was a Finnish soldier. Using a standard iron-sighted, bolt action rifle in the Winter War, he had the highest recorded number of kills as a sniper in any major war.

In temperatures between −20 and −40 degrees Celsius (−4 and −40 degrees Fahrenheit), dressed completely in a white camouflage suit, Häyhä was credited with 505 confirmed kills of Soviet soldiers, and 542 if including the unconfirmed deaths. The unofficial Finnish frontline figure from the battlefield of Kollaa places the number of Häyhä's sniper kills over 800. Besides his sniper kills, Häyhä was also credited with over two hundred kills with a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun, thus bringing his credited kills to at least 705. All of Häyhä's kills were accomplished in less than 100 days.

Häyhä used a Finnish variant, M/28, of the Soviet Mosin-Nagant rifle (known as "Pystykorva" rifle, meaning "spitz"), because it suited his small frame (5 ft 3 in/1.60 m). He preferred to use iron sights rather than telescopic sights to present a smaller target (the sniper must raise his head higher when using a telescopic sight), to prevent visibility risks (a telescopic sight's glass can fog up easily), and aid concealment (sunlight glare in telescopic sight lenses can reveal a sniper's position). Another tactic used by Häyhä was to compact the snow in front of him so that the shot wouldn't disturb the snow, thus revealing his position. He also kept snow in his mouth so that when breathing he wouldn't reveal his position.

The Soviets tried several ploys to get rid of him, including counter snipers (note: for example a whole squad of counter-snipers at a time; Häyhä killed all of them, as well as at another time a special task force specially gathered for the purpose of killing Häyhä) and artillery strikes.

On March 6 1940, Häyhä was shot in the jaw during combat. The bullet tumbled upon impact and left his head. He was picked up by fellow soldiers who said "half his head was missing". He regained consciousness on March 13, the day peace was declared. Shortly after the war, Häyhä was promoted straight from corporal to second lieutenant by Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. No one else has ever gained rank in such a quick fashion in Finland's military history.

When asked in 1998 how he had become such a good shot, he answered, "Practice." When asked if he regretted killing so many people, he has said "I did what I was told to as well as I could."

[Berger_4_]

Originally Posted by Itse

Wow, Round 2 already?

Okay, just so I can pick a Finn , and to take the word soldier literally. Not necessary historic, but legendary none the less.

In the Soldier category, team HeroQuest picks the White Death, Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä.



Simo Häyhä (December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002), nicknamed "White Death" (Russian: Белая Смерть, Belaya Smert; Finnish: Valkoinen kuolema) by the Soviet army, was a Finnish soldier. Using a standard iron-sighted, bolt action rifle in the Winter War, he had the highest recorded number of kills as a sniper in any major war.

In temperatures between −20 and −40 degrees Celsius (−4 and −40 degrees Fahrenheit), dressed completely in a white camouflage suit, Häyhä was credited with 505 confirmed kills of Soviet soldiers, and 542 if including the unconfirmed deaths. The unofficial Finnish frontline figure from the battlefield of Kollaa places the number of Häyhä's sniper kills over 800. Besides his sniper kills, Häyhä was also credited with over two hundred kills with a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun, thus bringing his credited kills to at least 705. All of Häyhä's kills were accomplished in less than 100 days.

Häyhä used a Finnish variant, M/28, of the Soviet Mosin-Nagant rifle (known as "Pystykorva" rifle, meaning "spitz"), because it suited his small frame (5 ft 3 in/1.60 m). He preferred to use iron sights rather than telescopic sights to present a smaller target (the sniper must raise his head higher when using a telescopic sight), to prevent visibility risks (a telescopic sight's glass can fog up easily), and aid concealment (sunlight glare in telescopic sight lenses can reveal a sniper's position). Another tactic used by Häyhä was to compact the snow in front of him so that the shot wouldn't disturb the snow, thus revealing his position. He also kept snow in his mouth so that when breathing he wouldn't reveal his position.

The Soviets tried several ploys to get rid of him, including counter snipers (note: for example a whole squad of counter-snipers at a time; Häyhä killed all of them, as well as at another time a special task force specially gathered for the purpose of killing Häyhä) and artillery strikes.

On March 6 1940, Häyhä was shot in the jaw during combat. The bullet tumbled upon impact and left his head. He was picked up by fellow soldiers who said "half his head was missing". He regained consciousness on March 13, the day peace was declared. Shortly after the war, Häyhä was promoted straight from corporal to second lieutenant by Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. No one else has ever gained rank in such a quick fashion in Finland's military history.

When asked in 1998 how he had become such a good shot, he answered, "Practice." When asked if he regretted killing so many people, he has said "I did what I was told to as well as I could."

Sh1t! I thought he would've dropped at least to the second round. He did some pretty amazing stuff, that's for sure.

[octothorp]

Great choice, he was on my list for the category.

[RougeUnderoos]

Outlaw

James Burke



Jimmy was the kind of guy that rooted for bad guys in the movies.

Robert De Niro played the part of James Burke in the film "Goodfellas". They called him Jimmy Conway in that flick. He was a nut in that movie, what with the killing his friends and all that, but he was a softie compared to the real life guy.

His mom was a hooker and nobody knew who his dad was. He grew up in orphanages and foster care and was abused by the older boys and some men.

He killed something like 50 people. A line from Goodfellas is "Jimmy was doing hits for mob bosses when he was 15" and apparently it's true.

He named his sons Frank James Burke and Jesse James Burke in honour of the Wild West gangsters.

He stole 6 million bucks from JFK airport in 1978 and it was the biggest robbery in American history at the time. Then he killed almost everyone who was in on it, including some wives of the guys who helped him carry it off.

His daughter married a guy named Anthony Indelicato. Anthony is in the slammer now for murdering some people. I only include his name because I think "Anthony Indelicato" is the best name ever.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Great choice, he was on my list for the category.

And here I thought I was picking some obscure Finn much earlier than would've been necessary.

[Aeneas]

I will pick in the soldier category, Leonidas of Sparta.

Of course his main claim to fame was dying in heroic manner at the pass of Thermopylae.



I think the Spartans were the best soldiers in history, so it seems correct to pick a leader amongst them to fill this category.

Hopefully that awful (in my opinion) "movie" 300 is not the primary source for people wishing to learn about Spartans. In that film, they completely ignored everything that made the Spartans such good soldiers.

Courage, good armour, and trusting the fellow next to you. Once in the phalanx they were near unbeatable. You kept your shield in front of you, but attacked not the enemy facing you, but th enemy facing the man to your right. You put your trust in the man to your left to kill the foe in front of you. No prancing leaping single combats! But those make good film I guess.

The best part of that film was the delivery of the famous lines by Gerard Butler. The Greeks have past down through the generations those things said by Leonidas at Thermopylae.

In Steven Pressfield's 1998 work of historical fiction on this topic I enjoyed his take on how Leonidas picked the men to go to Thermopylae. He did not pick the cream of Spartan soldiery, he seemed to pick them at random. However in this book he says he picked the men based on the mothers and sisters they left behind. That in their deaths the kin they left behind would be the strongest women to ensure the city would rally.

I had trouble with this category in that there were way too many choices, from all ages to pick from. Sorry to troutman for going with such an obvious choice. However when I try to think of a great soldier and the story of his valiant death; I can think of no other than Leonidas.

[troutman]

I select in the Humanitarian category, Bartolomé de las Casas:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolo...9_de_las_Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. (November 1484 – July 1566), was a 16th-century SpanishDominicanpriest, writer and the first resident Bishop of Chiapas. As a settler in the New World he witnessed, and was driven to oppose, the torture and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists.[1]

He returned to Spain to push for rights of the natives, and end of slavery. He was successful in the passage of the New Laws (1542) abolishing the encomiendas and removing certain officials from the Council of the Indies. However, the reforms were so unpopular back in the New World that riots broke out and threats were made against Las Casas' life.[16] Las Casas had to return to Spain again in to defend himself against treason. In 1550 a famous debate took place between Las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda, who argued that the native people were inferior and should be pacified forcefully. Although no formal decision was handed down from the commission, the majority favored Las Casas and the New Laws were in the end upheld. [17] The writings of Las Casas and the New Laws he helped implement were the beginning of international law and are very similar to the United Nations declaration of Human Rights.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valladolid_debate

The Valladolid debate (1550 – 1551) concerned the treatment of natives of the New World. Held in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it opposed two main attitudes towards the conquests of the Americas. Dominicanfriar and Bishop of ChiapasBartolomé de las Casas argued that the Amerindians were free men in the natural order and deserved the same treatment as others, according to Catholic theology.[1] Opposing him was fellow Dominican Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, who insisted the Indians were natural slaves, and therefore reducing them to slavery or serfdom was in accordance with Catholic theology and natural law.[1] Las Casas and Sepúlveda each later claimed to have won the debate, but no record supporting either claim exists, and the debate had no clear effect on the treatment of the natives.[2]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITN6qx3LrZU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omrnr...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGDT1...eature=related

[octothorp]

nm

[Flash Walken]

Damn I would loved to have been in on this.

[Displaced Flames fan]

In the category (for now) of Military Leader, Team Historyectomy is extremely proud to select one of the greatest military minds in history, but one who fought only when all other options were exhausted, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.




Chief Joseph (March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904) was the chief of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce during General Oliver O. Howard's attempt to forcibly remove his band and the other "non-treaty" Nez Perce to a reservation in Idaho. For his principled resistance to the removal, he became renowned as a humanitarian and peacemaker.

After vowing to his father never to leave his bands home valley, Joseph made effort after effort to negotiate pallatable agreements with the US government to retain the land, then to leave it to avoid war once the US broke the first treaty. Joseph strove for peace, and only when given no other option did he decide to fight. He led the US Cavalry on a three month long, 1700 mile path of war as he led his people toward the Canadian border and their freedom. Along the way the Nez Perce used sophisticated military strategy to keep the much larger and superiorly armed army at bay.

Depsite his advanced tactics and execution, Joseph came up 40 miles short of the border when an autumn storm and a 5 day battle took its toll on the Nez Perce and their dwindling supplies.

He surrendered Oct 5, 1877 in the Bear Paw mountains, Montana with the eloquent words I used to title this post.

[octothorp]

This is awesome. We're still in the second round, and there are already four picks of guys I know next to nothing about. Every time somebody posts, I tend to get lost in Wikipedia for the next half hour, learning more about that person and the context around them.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by MattyC

I have some bad news. I have moved and may be out of internet for a while. I think its best if I drop out of this draft while its still early. Sorry team, have fun!

Flash_Walken, do you want to replace MattyC? So far his first pick was Genghis Khan.
And it would be your turn right now.

Edit: received PM. Flash-Walken has taken over for MattyC. It's his pick right now.

[GirlySports]

Draft Board is up and on the main page.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...CaUZvSGc&hl=en

[Flash Walken]

Team "Charlie Don't Surf" is proud to select, with their second pick in the catagory of "Political Leader", First Secretary of the Treasury for the United States of America and Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton.

Born relatively poor and with little formal education, Hamilton would never the less prove to educate himself and ascend to the highest ranks of American Society. One of George Washington's closest advisors, Hamilton saw military action in the decisive Battle of Yorktown.

Following the war, Hamilton would become the driving force (and largest contributing author, roughly 60 percent) behind the Federalist Papers.

As founding treasury secretary, he is responsible for much of the basic economic policy in place by the united states, and by extension the world.

He founded the Bank of New York, the oldest continuously running financial institution in the US, as well as founded The New York Post and Columbia College, restoring Kings College after it had been disbanded during the war.

Alexander Hamilton, one of the most prominent, yet little known members of American Indendence.

[Yeah_Baby]

With our second overall pick Team Silent enim leges inter arma Selects in the Visual Artist category George Catlin.



The Following is an excert from a rough draft of a paper I wrote on Catlin: If anyone is interested and you want to read 18 pages on the dude I'd be willing to send you a copy.

"In many ways Catlin was a man ahead of his time; an artist, a visionary, and a social reformer. Catlin played an instrumental role in bringing both the beauty and the mystery of the American West to the ‘cultured’ tidewater states of the eastern seaboard. However, George Catlin was himself a conflicted individual. He was a champion of ‘Indian’ Rights in so many ways, and yet somewhat exploitative of the various native cultures that he painted.


What is interesting about George Catlin are the contradictions that seem to follow the man; his apparent love for his wife that he constantly was away from[1], breaking away from the yoke of his father’s plan, yet still haunted by his father’s influence. Catlin was ahead of his time when it came to rights for Native Americans, and yet he had no moral qualms about intruding on their society, and making monetary gains at their expense. Catlin also claimed to stand against the Indian relocation and the steady march of Manifest Destiny, and yet he was one the few pioneers that took the first important steps in opening the West. What then is George Catlin’s greatest legacy? Well, much like the contradictions that form the man, his impact on the American experience is two- fold. On one hand, due to his ability to be ahead of his time, and his cultural relativism, he provides history with its most extensive record the peoples of the near Western frontier pre contamination, in its purest form. The other is that Catlin was a figure that started to reveal the mysteries of the American West, who peered the ‘light’ on the dark corners of the American frontier. Once America’s eyes turned ever more fervently on the mysterious West, whether it be the real West or the romanticized “West of the Imagination”[2] Catlin was instrumental in making the American psyche look Westward. So then with this great legacy, both positive and negative, perhaps Catlin’s life is a metaphor for the American experience!"

[1] During supplementary research one source claimed that it is likely that Catlin was a polygamist and had started a family with a native woman, possibly a Mandan due to his closeness with the tribe and his witnessing of sacred rituals. Also the Mandan’s themselves were polygamists. However this source was not peer reviewed, and found generally by accident after the primary research period. So while an interesting suggestion, it remains conjecture as far as this researcher is concerned.

[2] Credit to William Geotzmann


edit: Wow you copy and past one thing and fonts go all fubar

[octothorp]

In the Southern Hemisphere category, Team Strange Things Afoot at the Circle K selects Simon Bolivar.

If you were to make a list of leaders who have been president of four different countries, is considered a revered national hero in about six, has units of currency named after him in two, and even has one entire country named after him, it would be a pretty short list. In fact, it would probably begin and end with Simon Bolivar. Venezuela, Peru, Columbia, Panama, Ecuador, and, of course, Bolivia all attribute their independence in large part to Bolivar's efforts.

Bolivar came from a wealthy family that made its fortune in mining in present-day Venezuela, a fortune that he would spend vast amounts of on the revolutionary effort in western South America. By the age of 30, he had served as both a diplomat and a military leader for the struggling independence movements of Venezuela and Gran Columbia, and that same year liberated Venezuela and became its second president. Later, he'd become president of Columbia, and then help liberate a form both Peru and Bolivia, bringing his political influences - Scottish and French enlightenment - into those country's constitutions, and eliminated slavery in the region. Through it all, he used a combination of military acumen and diplomatic strategy to work against the Spanish powers in the region, and local military juntas.

He never succeeded in his dream of uniting those colonies into one american-style union, and political pressures forced him to increasingly centralize authority and become less of a president and more of a dictator, moves that caused him to become increasingly unpopular. However, his almost single-handed influence on the region is really amazing.

[Yeah_Baby]

We're just cruising through

[MissTeeks]

I think octothorp wins for best team name! San Dimas High School football rules! I look forward to following this draft to learn about historical figures I'm not familiar with and learn new things about the ones I do know. Happy drafting everyone.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by octothorp

In the Southern Hemisphere category, Team Strange Things Afoot at the Circle K selects Simon Bolivar.

If you were to make a list of leaders who have been president of four different countries, is considered a revered national hero in about six, has units of currency named after him in two, and even has one entire country named after him, it would be a pretty short list. In fact, it would probably begin and end with Simon Bolivar. Venezuela, Peru, Columbia, Panama, Ecuador, and, of course, Bolivia all attribute their independence in large part to Bolivar's efforts.

Bolivar came from a wealthy family that made its fortune in mining in present-day Venezuela, a fortune that he would spend vast amounts of on the revolutionary effort in western South America. By the age of 30, he had served as both a diplomat and a military leader for the struggling independence movements of Venezuela and Gran Columbia, and that same year liberated Venezuela and became its second president. Later, he'd become president of Columbia, and then help liberate a form both Peru and Bolivia, bringing his political influences - Scottish and French enlightenment - into those country's constitutions, and eliminated slavery in the region. Through it all, he used a combination of military acumen and diplomatic strategy to work against the Spanish powers in the region, and local military juntas.

He never succeeded in his dream of uniting those colonies into one american-style union, and political pressures forced him to increasingly centralize authority and become less of a president and more of a dictator, moves that caused him to become increasingly unpopular. However, his almost single-handed influence on the region is really amazing.

His name is on streets and statues all over South America. Saw a big statue if him in Guayaquil.