Saturday Scenes

The 22nd of October of 1844 is known as the Great Disappointment.

A Baptist preacher by the name of William Miller told his people that Jesus Christ would come to cleanse and take possession of the earth, along with the saints, during the year of 1844. Although William Miller did not specify a date but merely a time period (initially 21 March 1843 to 21 March 1844), Millerite Samuel Snow calculated that the return of Christ would take place on the 22nd of October, 1844. As a journalist and reformed skeptic, his conclusion carried much weight and was quickly embraced.

By the beginning of October, even Miller came to believe in the new date, “seeing it had obtained such prevalence, and considering it was at a probable point of time, I was persuaded that it was a work of God, and felt that, if it should pass by, I should be more disappointed than I was in my first published time.”

The 22nd of October dawned, “one of the most lovely mornings of this loveliest season of the year,” wrote Miller. But the day that had begun with such hope and promise passed without any apparent visitation from celestial beings.

Miller wrote to Joshua Himes with frustration about the reactions he received.

MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM MILLER, GENERALLY KNOWN AS A LECTURER ON THE PROPHECIES:

“Some are tauntingly enquiring, ‘Have you not gone up?’ Even little children in the streets are shouting continually to passersby, ‘Have you a ticket to go up?’ The public prints, of the most fashionable and popular kind…are caricaturing in the most shameful manner of the ‘white robes of the saints,’ Revelation 6:11, the ‘going up,’ and the great day of ‘burning.’ Even the pulpits are desecrated by the repetition of scandalous and false reports concerning the ‘ascension robes’, and priests are using their powers and pens to fill the catalogue of scoffing in the most scandalous periodicals of the day.”

On the 22nd of October in 2011, those of us who follow @SatScenes expected to see wondrous views of every-day life from all over the world. And not a single one was a disappointment:

And those glorious photographs were taken by these people, not one of whom ever had a doubt that the 22nd of October would become a special day. A Saturday:

• CarolineBignell
• icklemouse
• Pewari
• sparc
• sahfenn
• JanetIsserlis
• annemnicholas
• pendrift
• twasntme
• JeannieKJelly
• akrabat
• robdavies
• evilrooster
• carocat
• BucksWriter
• raumsinn
• AlistairRae
• Krautie
• rnout
• kyleorchid
• UKMelia
• Jamesnnb
• HeideSpruck
• pixelfreund
• RyanosaurusRex
• timewind
• fembat
• mickpound
• riggersmark
• noirem
• knball
• RealCainMosni

Would you like to join us? I can confidently predict that we will see more photographs from all over the world on the exact date of the 29th of October 2011! Simply take a photograph on Saturday and send it to @SatScenes with a location!

On the 15th of October in 1783, the first manned flight was made in a balloon by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier.

Balloons captured the attention of the French after the discovery of hydrogen in 1776. Jaques Charles started with an unmanned balloon, which travelled 15 miles to land in Gonesse, where it was destroyed by local farmers wielding pitchforks.

The first passengers were sent off on September 19th of 1783 by the Montgolfier brothers. They launched a paper and cloth balloon with three passengers: a sheep, a cockerel and a duck. Pilâtre de Rozier helped to launch it. It reached 6,000 feet and landed with its barnyard passengers intact.

After this success, King Louis XVI wanted to send up two condemned criminals but Pilâtre de Rozier managed to convince him that being the first balloonist would be an honour, not a punishment, and should go to a person of esteem. Namely, himself. The first test was with a tethered balloon.

Wonderful Balloon Ascents by Camille Flammarion (writing as Fulgence Marion), 1870

On Wednesday, the 15th of October, Pilatre des Roziers, who had on other occasions given proofs of his intelligence and courage in performing dangerous feats, and who had already signalised himself in connection with balloons, offered to go up in the new machine. His offer was accepted; the balloon was inflated; stout ropes, more than eighty feet long, were attached to it, and it rose from the ground to the height to which this tackle allowed it. At this elevation it remained four minutes twenty-five seconds; and it is not surprising to hear that Roziers suffered no inconvenience from the ascent. What was really the interesting thing in this experiment was, that it showed how a balloon would fall when the hot air became exhausted, this being the point which caused the greatest amount of disquietude among men of science. In this instance the balloon fell gently; its form distended at the same time, and, after touching the ground, it rose again a foot or two, when its human passenger had jumped out.

A few weeks later, on the 21st of November, Pilâtre de Rozier flew in an untethered balloon from the Château de la Muette to the Butte-aux-Cailles near Paris in the first recorded manned flight.

On the 15th of October in 2011 (two hundred and twenty eight years later) the following people gave proofs of their intelligence and courage in submitting their photography for all of Twitter to see! Take a look:

And here are the high-flyers who shared them:

• akaSylvia
• CallumDG
• carocat
• robdavies
• raumsinn
• evilrooster
• JeannieKelly
• rnout
• Pewari
• icklemouse
• JanetIsserlis
• riggersmark
• Denrael
• akrabat
• sahfenn
• thermalhound
• pendrift
• HeideSpruck
• ernmander
• BucksWriter
• UKMelia
• jamesnnb
• RacingHippo
• noirem
• RyanosaurusRex
• LukaIsntLuka
• timewind
• twasntme
• kyleorchid
• evenstar84
• RealCainMosni

Saturday Scenes is a great way to see the world from someone else’s point of view! Taking part is easy:

1. Take a photograph on a Saturday
2. Send it to @Satscenes on Twitter
3. Wait for the webpage to get updated
4. Oooh and aah over all the great submissions from all over the world!

So take a photograph this weekend and send it to @Satscenes!

On the 8th of October in 1967, Ken Warby set the current water speed record of 317.60 miles per hour (511.13 km/hour) in his self-built boat at the Blowering Dam in Australia. The boat was made of wood and fibreglass and had a jet engine which he purchased from a military auction.

Warby said that the previous record holder Donald Campbell had been his hero since he was a child. Warby is the only person to have exceeded 300 mph (482 km/hour) average speed for the test and survive.

Donald Campbell held the previous record with 276.33 mph. In 1967 he tried to beat his own record and, on his first run, he’d reached a peak speed of 315 mph with an average of 297.6 mph. Tragically he died that day on the second run, trying to reach his target of 300 mph. His speedboat, the Bluebird K7, flipped and disintegrated while travelling in excess of 320 mph.

Bluebird tragedy blamed on a duck | UK news | guardian.co.uk

The fatal somersault on Coniston Water which killed Donald Campbell and destroyed his Bluebird jet boat may have been caused by a duck.

Research for a new book on the tragedy, which will be published this coming Saturday, 15 October, suggests that the bird was biffed on a practice run by one of the relatively slender spars which connected the main hull to its two stabilising fins.

It is believed that the damage from the duck on the first run was enough to destabilise the Bluebird for the second run.

I’ll be looking for the book this Saturday and maybe even take a SatScene of it!

Meanwhile on the 8th of October in 2011, the following people made at least a small mark on the world by taking a photograph to share with all of us:

Make a friend today! Follow the photographers and say hello:

• BucksWriter
• CarolineBignell
• RAFairman
• Pewari
• sahfenn
• carocat
• SockYarnShop
• fluttabyz
• ernmander
• riggersmark
• noirem
• HeideSpruck
• Mutley627441
• JanetIsserlis
• fembat
• SarahKITV
• pendrift
• UKMelia
• pixelfreund
• RyanosaurusRex
• jamesnnb
• kyleorchid
• JeannieKelly
• raumsinn
• LukaIsntLuka
• drewbenn
• robdavies
• akrabat
• RealCainMosni
• akaSylvia
• sweeneyjf

Do you know anyone with a camera?

Of course you do! Why not tell your friends about SatScenes?

Anyone from anywhere in the world can take part! All you have to do is take a photograph on Saturday and send it to @SatScenes to be included.

On the 1st of October in 1910, Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born. She was a good student, winning top prizes in spelling, writing and public speaking. She wrote poetry. She got married six days before her sixteenth birthday but they split up before she turned 19. She lived with her mother for a year, working as a waitress and writing in her diary about the loneliness and boredom of her life in Dallas.

And then she met Clyde Barrow. Bonnie was smitten and became his companion and his partner in crime. On the run from the police, Bonnie left behind her possessions in an apartment in Joplin. Police found a handwritten poem and a camera with several rolls of exposed film: fun photographs of Bonnie and Clyde and their friends. Suddenly, the world was paying attention.

Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde

John Dillinger had matinee-idol good looks and Pretty Boy Floyd had the best possible nickname, but the Joplin photos introduced new criminal superstars with the most titillating trademark of all: illicit sex. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were young and unmarried. They undoubtedly slept together – after all, the girl smoked cigars… Without Bonnie, the media outside Texas might have dismissed Clyde as a gun-toting punk, if it ever considered him at all. With her sassy photographs, Bonnie supplied the sex-appeal, the oomph, that allowed the two of them to transcend the small-scale thefts and needless killings that actually comprised their criminal careers.

Although as far as is known, Bonnie never shot anyone herself, she was present at a hundred or more felonies, including thirteen murders, over the two-year period that Bonnie and Clyde spent together. You can see many of the famous photographs on the FBI’s page about Bonnie and Clyde.

On the 1st of October in 2011, more wonderful photographs were taken, some sassy and some with oomph, to share with the world:

And here are the shooters:

• fembat
• rnout
• CarolineBignell
• akrabat
• Pewari
• JeannieKelly
• noirem
• APGPhoto
• robdavies
• dudleypj
• riggersmark
• pixelfreund
• flutttabyz
• raumsinn
• ernmander
• tonystanford
• pendrift
• evilrooster
• UKMelia
• LukaIsntLuka
• jamesnnb
• Korwhai
• HeideSpruck
• sahfenn
• _YorkeMac
• JanetIsserlis
• CliffStanford
• carocat
• akaSylvia
• RealCainMosni
• RyanosaurusRex

Would you like to be listed too? It’s easy to join in!

1) Take a photo on a Saturday and upload it to a photo hosting site or your blog so we can see it
2) Twitter the url for your photograph to @SatScenes
3) Watch for the next post on Twitter Blog to see a great set of all the photographs together.

I’m looking forward to seeing your scenes!