In the late nineteenth century, coal miners went on strike in Pennsylvania and shut the mines down. Many mules who lived and worked in the coal mines were brought up to the surface for the first time in years. And that's why I found a newspaper story claiming the mules were so happy to be dancing in sunshine again that they refused to go back down when the mine reopened.

Not really research, but I was leafing through old local newspapers in the library at one point and came across this story from some time in the late 19th century which was reported with a jovial tone....

There was a toll bridge which cost a penny per person to cross. On arriving at the bridge, a pair of young men realised they only had a penny between them. On establishing, however, that a penny entitled you to take as much luggage as you could carry, one man hopped up onto the other man's shoulders and they paid the penny. Laughing, the tollkeeper allowed them to cross.

This may be a bit too legendary for this sub, but I still find it somewhat heartwarming, in a weird way.

According to the Roman Historian Livy, some time in the fourth century BC, Rome was at war with the Etruscans and Camillus was laying siege to the city of Falerii. In that city there was a tutor who was entrusted with a number of children of the most powerful families. Under the pretext of getting the boys some exercise, he led them outside the city walls and all the way to the Roman camp, thinking that he would be richly rewarded for bringing these valuable hostages.

But Camillus, ever the model of Roman virtue, was so appalled that he had the tutor stripped and beaten, then gave all the students sticks and flails so they could whip him all the way back to the gates. The Falerians, when they learned what happened, were so astonished by Camillus's righteousness that they immediately surrendered, willingly and peacefully, knowing they would receive a fair treatment.

Not sure if it's apocryphal, but the story of Lichtenstein's last military action is adorable.

Lichtenstein sent 80 soldiers to fight in the Austrian-Prussian war in 1886. None of the soldiers were injured or killed and when they returned, their number had increased to 81 because they made an Italian friend and brought him home with them.

I'm maybe cheating by posting two stories, but I've always found this story incredibly touching, an anecdote about happy married life from the female Chinese poet Li Qingzhao, 1084-1151.

I happen to have an excellent memory, and every evening after [my husband and I] finished eating, we would sit in the hall called 'Return Home' and make tea. Pointing to the heaps of books and histories, we would guess on which line of which page in which chapter of which book a certain passage could be found. Success in guessing determined who got to drink his or her tea first. Whenever I got it right, I would raise the teacup, laughing so hard that the tea would spill in my lap, and I would get up, not having been able to drink any of it at all. I would have been glad to grow old in such a world.

It's scenes like this, a couple laughing over their silly tea game nearly a thousand years ago, that really make history feel rewarding to me. For all the changes in culture and language and so on, these kinds of core human experiences remain universal.

Nellie Bly, a female writer and journalist from the late 19th century, isn't exactly the most distant historical figure, but her irreverance and personality always shine through in her writing and makes me laugh.

Here she is in 1890 as she tries to become the first person to travel around the world in 80 days. But in the sea cabin next to hers is the bane of all travelers - the family with young children:

I have always confessed that I like to sleep in the morning as well as I like to stay up at night, and to have my sleep disturbed makes me as ill-natured as a bad dinner makes a man. The fond father of these children had a habit of coming over early in the morning to see his cherubs, before he went to his bath. I know this from hearing him tell them so. He would open their cabin door and in the loudest, coldest, most unsympathetic voice in the world, would thoroughly arouse me from my slumbers by screaming:

"Good morning. How is papa's family this morning?"

A confused conglomeration of voices sounded in reply; then he would shout:

"What does baby say to mamma? Say; what does baby say to mamma?"

"Mamma!" baby would at length shout back in a coarse, unnatural baby voice.

"What does baby say to papa? Tell me, baby, what does baby say to papa?"

"Papa!" would answer back the shrill treble.

"What does the moo-moo cow say, my treasure; tell papa what the moo-moo cow says?"

To this the baby would make no reply and again he would shout:

"What does the moo-moo cow say, darling; tell papa what the moo-moo cow says?"

If it had been once, or twice even, I might have endured it with civilized forbearance but after it had been repeated, the very same identical word every morning for six long weary mornings, my temper gave way and when he said: "Tell papa what the moo-moo cow says?" I shouted frantically:

"For heaven's sake, baby, tell papa what the moo-moo cow says and let me go to sleep."

A heavy silence, a silence that was heavy with indignation and surprise, followed and I went off to sleep to dream of being chased down a muddy hill by babies sitting astride cows with crumpled horns, and straight horns and no horns at all, all singing in a melodious cow-like voice, moo! moo! moo!

The fond parents did not speak to me after that.

This is not a happy story per se, but rather a touching one that ends happily.

In 1881, the conventional phase of the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) had reached an end. Peru had suffered a series of defeats in battles, culminating in the battles of Chorillos and Miraflores in early 1881 which opened the gates of Lima to their Chilean enemies. The Peruvian army was crushed and its remnants either surrender, were captured or fled to the mountainous Sierra where they intended to wage a guerrilla war under the leadership of Andrés Avelino Cáceres. To put an end to the Peruvian resistance, the Chilean army sent out a division on what would be the first of several Sierra campaigns in 1882. As we all can imagine, fighting guerrillas is tough business and they're not too happy about fighting out in the open. Although minor clashes occured during the campaign, no decisive defeat occured and the original plan to trap Cáceres in the open failed to materialize. Throughout this campaign, Chilean units were garrisoned in towns all along the Peruvian Andes and both the garrisoned troops and the soldiers on the move suffered tremendously due to lack of supplies, the terrible conditions in the field which led to many Chilean soldiers being struck by diseases as well as the fact that they angered the predominantly indigenous population by forcing them to provide food and taxes, an act which turned many of them into guerrillas. The divisional commander, Enistanislao del Canto, realized that his division was at a breaking point and there was no realistic way for his troops to keep fighting in the Andes. A retreat was ordered back to Lima and that's when disaster struck. General Cáceres was told of the Chilean retreat and decided to strike, sending his troops on a series of attacks on Chilean garrisons all along the Andes. In the most famous engagement of the Sierra campaign, the Battle of Concepcíon, 77 Chilean soldiers garrisoned in La Concepcíon fought a battle against a Peruvian army of at least ten times their size and were completely annihilated in a last stand that has become as mythic in Chilean history as Little Big Horn or Isandlwana just a few years earlier. In the end, the division did manage to reach Lima. Casualties were 154 killed in action and 277 dead by disease with an additional 103 deserters.

It is against this background that our story takes place, but it's not about a Chilean soldier. It's about a Chilean camp follower. As is common in military history scholarship, there hasn't been enough research done on the women involved in military campaigns. Yet throughout history, women fought, lived and died alongside men and suffered the same hardships. The War of the Pacific was no different. There were women who served an official position in the Chilean army as regimental cantineras who'd serve as nurses and with other functions that a camp follower would usually do. These women were even given a specific female uniform which can be seen in this fantastic portrait of Irene Morales Infante who not only served as a cantinera but even participated in battle, something which many cantineras ended up doing. Other women who were not granted the official title of cantinera were forbidden to follow their men on campaign. The Chilean army were quick to ban women from military encampments early in the war to prevent the spread of venereal disease, problems of discipline as well as supply problems but this did not stop women from dressing up as soldiers and joining their men anyhow. By the time of the first Sierra campaign in 1882, camp followers became common in the Chilean army once more.

The following account is written by Arturo Benavides Santos, a soldier in the Lautaro regiment during the retreat through the Andes. Men and women suffered the same hardships throughout this march on foot through a mountainous terrain and very cold conditions for which none of them were prepared for and under the threat of being ambushed by guerillas at any time. The woman in this story has remained anonymous, a fate that has unfortunately befallen many women in the recollection of soldiers throughout history. Whether Benavides Santos refrained from writing her name to to protect her identity is uncertain, but there is no doubt about the feelings he had about her. From his memoirs, translated by yours truly:

"A comrade, the wife of a sergeant, and one of those selfless women who accompanied the army and suffered far more than the men, was struck by labor pains during the march. Her husband accommodated her on a horse that was drawn by soldiers who volunteered for the task and who rotated. When the moment arrived, they carried her down and laid her down over a few blankets. Other women took care of her and minutes afterwards, she was back on the horse.

No snow fell over the child. . . only the mother received it.

Almost twenty years ago, walking along Avenida Brazil [in Valparaíso, Chile], I heard an old woman walking up to me, saying: "My little lieutenant, how nice to see you." . . It was that long-suffering woman. . .

Few times have I ever given a hug with more delight."

Thus ends this story with a joyous, happy and accidental reunion by two veterans of the same war.

Not happy in the traditional sense, but the boxer Diagoras of Rhodes was most certainly a happy Greek.

Diagoras was the first of a very famous dynasty of ancient Greek combat athletes. He won victories at the Olympic and Delphi games, won the Isthmus four times, and several times at Nemea. This gave him the title periodonikes, which is reserved for an athlete that wins at "the big 4" events (Olympia, Delphi, Isthmus, and Nemea). He continued to win at contests in Athens, Rhodes, Argos, Arkadia, Thebes, Greater Boeotia, Pellene, Megara, and Aegina.

His family glory didn't end there though. His older sons Akousilaos and Damogetos each won an Olympic crown in boxing and pankration (pan=all kratiom=powers, a mixed rule set similar to modern MMA), respectively. His youngest son, Dorieus, who was both a boxer and pankrationist, alone collected almost as many victories as his father and brothers put together: three Olympic, four Delphic, eight Isthmian, and seven Nemean.

In addition to all that Diagoras' daughters, Pherenike and Kallipatira, each mothered a son that won a boxing championship at Olympia.

Supposedly, after watching his son's win their respective crowns, a bystander shouted, "Die Diagoras, for you can ascend no further!" This was a way of saying he accomplished all there is in Greek sporting culture: a champion that himself father's a champion, or a lineage of them.

I'm sure, without a doubt, Diagoras was a very proud and happy father.

In John Hersey "Hiroshima," he writes about how microscopic decisions such as where to stand, and whether or not this lead to being saved or destroyed.

While it seems sad on the surface and undoubtedly is at points, I like to take the lesson that even the smallest decisions in life matter, and those decisions can cause the difference between life and death. What we do matters significantly - even the smallest of details. That makes me happy, anyway.

The love story of Hirokichi Mutsu and Ethel Passingham really wows me.

Hirokichi was the eldest son of Count Munemitsu Mutsu, one of the great Meiji era statesman, a self-made man who had pulled himself up from an impoverished childhood as the son of a politically disgraced samurai to the heights of power in the new Japanese state. (Along the way he was also a companion of modern Japan's historical darling, the legendary Sakamoto Ryoma.) Count Mutsu was big stuff, the foreign minister who finally ended the Unequal Treaties Japan had suffered under with the West, and thought very well of himself. In 1888, he sent his heir Hirokichi, at age twenty-four to Cambridge University for a very modern elite education, and the Japanese embassy found Hirokichi a reputable English family with whom to lodge: the Passinghams.

Gertrude Ethel Passingham, twenty-one, was the eldest daughter of that family, and it was almost love on first sight between Hirokichi and Ethel. Hirokichi kept a diary of his years in England, and their son Ian Mutsu describes the diary of their courtship beautifully:

Student Hirokichi gave his first ring to Ethel barely a month after their first meeting. 'She accepted,' he wrote in his diary. It was a gold ring adorned with a single pearl — a pearl perhaps to signify Japan.

Nearly every page of the diary's early volumes mentions 'E' (E standing for Ethel). They went for long walks together, played tennis, went boating and talked at tea-time. Although they were already living under the same roof, Hirokichi wrote her long letters. She could help him with his English, and seemed to take an interest in what he could tell her about his homeland. She must have been a beautiful girl, gentle and kind and helpful towards Hirokichi who was a lifelong victim of asthma and at times was in need of support. Ethel played the piano and violin well. She loved to read poetry and good books. For her boyfriend she could provide tender care, while at the same time maintaining her strong will.

(-from "The Mutsu Family" by Ian Mutsu in Britain and Japan Vol II: Biographical Portraits by Ian Nish)

The Passingham family may have had doubts about the relationship, but seems to have accepted Hirokichi as their daughter's fiance. The problem was with the Japanese side of the family. Hirokichi knew that his father, Count Mutsu, would absolutely not accept an English middle-class daughter-in-law, so while he was at Cambridge, he just never informed his father about the engagement (though he did confide in his younger brother who was studying at Cornell University, and replied "Good for you! Best of luck!")

Now, these sorts of entanglements between Japanese students abroad and European/American women in the Meiji period aren't rare. This story sticks with me as one of the happiest I've ever read because usually these stories don't end well. Undying love vowed between young people gets cold water thrown on it when the lover returns to Japan, and realizes that hey, a marriage to a Japanese woman with good connections would be a lot more practical/ what the family wants etc. There's a famous Japanese scandal of the era, the Todo divorce case, where a noble scion had to hastily dissolve his marriage to an Italian-British lady (without her knowledge, and stripping her of English citizenship in the process) so he could wed a more suitable noble Japanese lady. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST19090318.2.7?query=hanover%20arrival - here's a contemporary newspaper account (The ensuing scandal destroyed the prospective second marriage, so there is justice in this world sometimes.) Foreign wives also often ended up unhappy if they did come to live in Japan. A lot of these international romances ended up in divorce and/or separation.

Hirokichi, on the other hand, when he returned to Japan in 1893, 'fessed up to his father and asked permission to marry Ethel Passingham. The Count told him to forget it, and wouldn't allow the marriage. For the next five years, while Hirokichi served as a Japanese diplomat in China and the U.S,. he and Ethel continued their relationship by correspondence.

Eventually, the old Count died, but Hirokichi still faced the issue that, as a member of the nobility, he would need Imperial approval for his marriage, which Good Old Dad had made certain he wouldn't get. So, in desperation, Hirokichi, now a diplomat in the United States, wrote to Ethel and asked her to come live with him, even if they couldn't get legally married

Which she did! In 1899, five years after they'd last seen each other, this perfectly well-bred devout Christian Englishwoman traveled alone from England to San Francisco to go live with her Japanese fiance. Next, they devised a plan so she could return to Japan with him. She wouldn't be let into Japan as his wife, so this involved some ingenuity. He'd won over his stepmother Ryoko to his cause, and Ryoko found the illegitimate daughter of the old Count, Hirokichi's half sister, in a geisha house in Kyoto, and took her into the family. Hirokichi returned to Japan alone, then officially sent for a new English governess for his pre-teen half-sister. The governess was Ethel.

Despite still not being officially married, Hirokichi and Ethel set up house in Japan like they were, and eventually, the couple won over all their critics. In 1905, seventeen years after they'd become engaged, they finally received official imperial sanction of their marriage. The law then was that Ethel had to take a Japanese name, and she picked the name "Iso" which sounded similar to the Japanese pronunciation of her English name, and means "the seashore".

The only sad spot in this story was that Hirokichi's younger sister, whom Ethel adored, died at age fourteen. But then, one more happiness, in 1907, while Hirokichi was Japan's ambassador to Britain, Ethel gave birth to the couple's only child, Yonosuke, more commonly known by his English name, Ian. Ian Mutsu's account is my main source for the details of his parents' relationship.

Ethel and Hirokichi finally retired in 1914 to the ancient seaside city of Kamakura, in Japan. Ethel fell in love with Kamakura's history and culture, and as I hope Ask Historians will appreciate, she became an amateur historian who published a famous book on Kamakura. She became a beloved fixture of Kamakura's community, particularly making friends in her research with the priests of the historic Buddhist temples.

When she died in 1930, she had an astounding send-off. Again, as related by her son:

When mother's funeral took place at the modest Methodist church in Kamakura, a remarkable incident occurred – an apt sequel to her visits to the Buddhist temples to research her book. As the service progressed, the vice-abbot of Engakuji Temple, resplendent in his gold and scarlet brocade surplice and attended by an acolyte, ascended the pulpit. On the Bible he placed the Buddhist sutras, then spoke words of praise and uttered an incantation of solace for the departed soul. A lead article in the Japan Times of 1 July 1930 said: 'And of all the body of mourners — among whom were many from the business activities of the Capital – not one but felt that the words of the Buddhist priest were as they should be even in their strange surroundings.'

Hirokichi died twelve years later, in 1942. Their son Ian became a famous journalist and documentary director and lived till 2002.

Ian Mutsu's obitituary: http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-japan&month=0211&week=b&msg=ahZmq2Q0UJhH2bUCnhYw/w&user=&pw=

It's deeply bittersweet, but one of my favorite historical personal narratives.

Andrew Weist's book, Vietnam's Forgotten Army, centers on two officers in the ARVN, Pham Van Dinh and Tran Ngoc Hue. Both were great combat leaders who fought in many of the same units, Hue sort of following Dinh up through the ranks. Dinh became 'The Young Lion of Hue' in 1968 for leading his battalion to retake the Citadel and raising the RVN flag over the ancient capital, and Hue's company of Rangers stormed the palace itself.

The war, though, did not end well for the ARVN. Hue's battalion air assaulted onto the heights along Route 9 going into Laos in Operation Lam Son 719. However, this offensive was made without U.S. assistance and advisors, per the Cooper-Church Amendment. Furthermore, the NVA were well prepared, unlike the previous excursion into Cambodia. Outnumbered and isolated from the main armored column, Hue was surrounded and repeatedly broke out, fighting furiously against massed NVA artillery and armor. Only about 30 men in the whole battalion were taken prisoner; Hue was captured, and on the forced march north, parasites infected his wounds, and his hand was amputated. He spent the next few decades of his life in prison.

Dinh came to command a regiment in I Corps Tactical Zone during the Nguyen Hue offensive. While the NVA was pasted overall, it wasn't before Dinh's headquarters was surrounded by elements of three NVA divisions. When he phoned his corps commander to ask for guidance, the was curtly told to fight to the last man, before he hung up to go to a tennis match. Disgusted, Dinh defected with his regiment, and became sort of a poster-boy for North Vietnam's 'Chieu Hoi'. It was agreed that he would not be forced to fight other South Vietnamese, and he even tried to convince Hue to defect. Having seen all he needed of North Vietnam, Hue simply spat on him.

Like many high ranking South Vietnamese, Hue spent years, going on decades in the communist prison/reeducation system; with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, he was brought to his hometown of Hue as part of the repatriation of prisoners, only to be told that, since he was captured in Laos, he was a prisoner of the Pathet Lao, and was not covered by the treaty. His wife waited for him to return, but to no avail. When he got out, his previous affiliation made him unemployable, dishonored, an object of suspicion and ridicule. He became a beggar on the streets of Saigon, having reunited with a family that almost couldn't recognize him.

In the meantime, Dinh had served in a variety of staff positions of little responsibility in North Vietnam; he was assigned for a time as a teacher in the reeducation camps around his hometown, which he found distasteful. As relations between Vietnam and the U.S. warmed, and U.S. veterans began to return to Vietnam, he found work as a battlefield guide, showing where he had fought the government he now served for a country he had betrayed.

Having not been allowed to follow Hue into Laos, Dave Wiseman, his advisor from during the war didn't know what had become of him. In the U.S., he carried around a photo of his old brother-in-arms, asking any Vietnamese he met if they knew him or what had become of him. He asked this for years before he got an answer, having run into Hue's cousin-in-law in a D.C. dinner for the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association. After years of rumors of Hue's death on the battlefield or in prison, he finally got the news that Hue and his family were alive in Saigon. When Hue received the letter and the 100$ sent with it, he wept with joy that his old brother in arms had not forgotten their friendship. He faxed back that he wanted nothing more than to leave Vietnam, and Wiseman agreed to do everything he could.

It was a laborious and expensive process, getting travel documents from a government that despised him, but in 1991, Hue, his wife, and their three children landed in a new country. Penniless in their own right, they were immensely grateful to Wiseman and his fellow Marines, who had scraped together enough to get the family an apartment in Falls Church, Virginia, complete with schoolbooks for their children. A few months later, Hue met with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, who presented him with the Bronze and Silver Stars, medals he had won fighting for his country, but had long since lost. He immersed himself in the Vietnamese emigre community, and worked three jobs at a time to pay off his loans, even giving back Wiseman the security deposit on the apartment. His wife worked full time too, and Wiseman helped him get a steady job at the Marine PX. Three years later, the Hues had a house of their own, and sponsored more South Vietnamese to emigrate. Hue and his whole family became U.S. Citizens in 1997, and all three of his daughters graduated from the University of Maryland, and started families of their own. After decades of struggle and suffering, he finally had a home again.

Dinh met Weist while giving a tour of the Siege of Hue; after driving to Camp Carroll, the site of his defection in 1972, Dinh pulled him aside and asked if he would write a book about him. He knew he would have to give the interviews in America, because, ironically, the Vietnamese government he defected to would never allow him to describe his past with South Vietnam.

While being interviewed for the book, Dinh was clearly basking in his tales of days gone by, when he was a national hero, winning battles for South Vietnam. He'd lived well since then; not rich, but very comfortable in his old home city of Hue, with steady work, forays into the new market economy, stuff like that. But he finally began to break down when it came time to tell the story of his defection; thirty years later, he still hurt for the country he betrayed. "America is still in South Korea," he asked Weist. "Why are you not still in South Vietnam? What did we do wrong?" His government would never allow him to tell his story, and much of the Vietnamese emigre community would brand him a liar and a traitor no matter what he said; however painful, Dinh knew this would be his one chance to tell the truth about the Vietnam War. After hearing about the interviews, the Vietnamese government clamped down on him, and he had a stroke and died less than a year later, a man without a country.

When Hue was interviewed, Weist could see he was a man at peace. Hue paid a high price for his courage, his devotion to his nation, and his personal honor; he suffered for decades, through war and peace, losing his hand, his homeland, and his freedom. But in the end, life rewarded him. He has a new homeland, an intact family, prosperity in the land of opportunity, and a clean conscience. He once thought he would never live to see his wife and daughters ever again, but has lived to see them grow up successful and give him grandchildren. He calls himself the luckiest man in the world, and thanks God every day he gets to live the American Dream.

Not sure if it's "happy", but it always makes me giggle.

Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard's captain, once boarded a ship and stole everyone's hats.

You're a crewman, a pirate crew just boarded your ship. Then they explain that they got drunk the night before and lost all their hats. No interest in your cargo or your life. Just your hat.

I honestly find something extremely heartwarming about the post political life of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. He was a loyal friend of Julius Caesar, and was made consul and then Master of Horses (magister equituum, basically deputy dictator) after Caesars victory in the Civil War--historians have habitually considered him feckless and weak, but this was evidently not a view shared by Julius Caesar. In the aftermath of Caesars assassination, a lot f really complicated stuff happened, but long story short he was for a few years one of three men who divided the empire between themselves, then wasn't because Octavian outmaneuvered him. What I find heartwarming is that after that, he retired to a nice villa in Campania and died of natural causes at the ripe old age of about 78. Nobody died f natural causes who was deeply involved in the Civil Wars, they were not only a meat grinder for the general populace but devastating to the upper classes, and I always liked the fact that someone who was so central to the drama managed to retire and live out his days.

He might not have seen it that way, but eh.

I don't have my copy of Roderick Barman's "Ctizien Emperor: Pedro II" handy but if I recall correctly, there was a description of how a grandmother of a lower class family petitioned Emperor Pedro II of Brazil for her son to be admitted to a university. Years later the Emperor attended the graduation ceremony of that university where the grandson was graduating and Pedro commented to one of his advisers of how proud the grandmother would've been had she still been alive to watch her grandson graduate.

I want to say the grandson was even giving a speech due to graduating top of his class but my memory might be embellishing details. At any rate, it's the fact that a guy in charge of a large, populous country really seemed to care about one of the common people of his land that I find so moving.

So, as I'm sure everyone knows, there's a bit of an ongoing refugee crisis. For those of you that find joy in helping refugees, hopefully you will enjoy this short story about Wales and the Belgian refugees in World War I.

While doing some research on World War I, I came across a story in a South Wales newspaper regarding a group of Belgian refugees that were supposed to be arriving in a small town in southern Wales. The citizens were told that the Belgians were supposed to be arriving, so a group of them walked to the railway station to greet them. They didn't arrive. For the next week, the Welsh walked to the railway station, carrying mattresses for the Belgians to sleep on and soup for the refugees to eat. However, they still did not arrive. Finally, a group of Belgians arrived! However, it was soon discovered that they were the wrong group of Belgians. The author of the newspaper was elated that a group had arrived, but finished the story by asking, "But, where are our Belgians?"

It's a fantastic story when viewed in the wider context of Wales and the First World War. Both Belgium and Wales were small nations fighting against the much larger Germany. The recruiters working in Wales at the time tried to utilize the fact that Wales was a small nation. It's hard to know how effective it was, as I did not have access to personal papers. However, that was not the goal of my research.

If anyone is interested in the newspaper article, I can try to find my notebook (that I have misplaced) and send it your way.

Well, literally the "happiest" thing to happen to Western Art Music is the move away from the modal system into what we currently call tonal harmony in England in the early 1600s. A particularly beautiful piece of music illustrating this is Christopher Simpson's Divisions on a Ground in F for bass viols. Widely unheard of and unknown today, Christopher Simpson was an early theorist and instructor of music whose music can be said to be the very start of the Baroque music in England who were a bit behind Italy as far as moving out of the Renaissance period of music.

About twenty years ago, when I was studying in Europe, I made a visit to Denmark, the country from which my great grandfather immigrated to America. My Danish hosts, who'd known the members of my family that stayed behind, took me to meet an old woman whom we worked out to be my grandfather's third cousin - so, a tangential relation, at best. She, however, told me a story that I've never forgot.

As a young woman, she met and married a Dutch engineer, who was posted by his employer, Royal Dutch Shell, to the Dutch East Indies. After a brief honeymoon, he traveled by flying boat to their new home, with his bride expecting to follow by sea a short time later. Unfortunately, this was 1939, and the War interrupted their plans.

I didn't understand the precise timetable - I think that she may have begun her voyage and then been turned back at the outbreak of hostilities - but in any case, when the Japanese invaded (what is now) Indonesia, all contact with her husband was lost. The oilfields where he had been working were overrun, and the colonial inhabitants either killed or imprisoned. No word of his fate reached home, nor could his whereabouts be traced by the Red Cross. He was declared missing, and then, after some years, dead, and their marriage null.

"My parents," she told me, "wanted me to find another husband, but I never gave up hope." In 1945, at the end of the war, and six years after he'd gone missing, he reappeared. He had fled into the jungle with some of his Indonesian employees, and lived rough, conducting a private guerilla war for the duration of the conflict.

At this point, the old woman sent her daughter into the other room to fetch a photograph. "This," she said, "was taken when he came home." In the picture, they are walking down the gangplank of a ship. He's thin. Their arms are wrapped around each other. It can't be more than a minute since they've first seen each other, and they're still just drinking each other in. The look of absolute, unbridled joy in both their faces is, well, I'm not sure any two people in all of history have ever felt happier than they were at that moment.