Hell on Wheels saison 5 photo

Hell on Wheels saison 5

Voici la cinquième et dernière saison de Hell on Wheels sur AMC.

Le chemin de fer n’est toujours pas achevé et Cullen Bohannon se trouve toujours avec la Central Pacific Railroad.

Il est toujours déterminé à finir sa tâche, rallier la Californie à l’Utah, et espère toujours retrouver sa famille. Enfin, s’il arrive à ne pas se faire tuer ou à ne pas croiser les mauvaises personnes sur son chemin !

Cette dernière saison de quatorze épisodes sera diffusée en deux parties : sept épisodes durant l’été 2015, puis sept autres épisodes en 2016.

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Hell on Wheels saison 4

Voici la quatrième saison de la série Hell on Wheels sur AMC.

Cette saison se centre encore et toujours sur l’expansion vers l’Ouest de l’Union Pacific Railroad.

Des conflits entre le gouvernement et des entreprises, des ranchers, des colons et la ligne de chemin de fer éclatent.

Tous ces intérêts différents entrent en compétition les uns avec les autres pour le contrôle de la ville de Cheyenne, dans le Wyoming, l’un des noeuds les plus importants de la ligne de chemin de fer en 1867.

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Hell on Wheels saison 3

Hell on Wheels est de retour pour une troisième saison sur AMC.

Cullen Bohannon revient au centre du show et abandonne son désir de vengeance pour sa famille pour continuer l’expansion vers l’ouest de l’Union Pacific Railroad, tout en combattant Thomas “Doc” Durant pour le contrôle.

La tagline de cette saison est : “Outlaw In Charge”.

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Le squelette de Richard III retrouvé sous les fondations d'un parking à Leicester photo

Le squelette de Richard III retrouvé sous les fondations d’un parking à Leicester

Des archéologues affirment que les restes du corps qui ont été excavés en dessous d’un parking à Leicester le 4 février 2013 appartiennent au roi anglais Richard III.

King_Richard_III

Le squelette, retrouvé en septembre 2012, présente au niveau de la colonne vertébrale des signes de scoliose, que Richard III avait certainement, et des blessures de guerre qui correspondent aux récits de la mort de Richard III au cours de la Guerre des Deux-Roses.

C’est ce qui a poussé les archéologues à demander des tests plus poussés afin de vérifier son identité.

Les chercheurs de l’Université de Leicester ont donc conduit une série de tests, dont un test de l’ADN extrait d’une dent et d’un os de Michael Ibsen, un descendant actuel de la soeur de Richard III, Anne of York.

Ce test a confirmé la relation génétique entre l’ADN d’Ibsen et celui du squelette. Ces restes sont donc bien ceux de Richard III.

Richard III et la Guerre des Deux-Roses

Richard III est né en 1452 et a gouverné l’Angleterre de 1483 à 1485. Son règne se termina par sa mort à la bataille de Bosworth Field, la bataille finale dans la guerre civile anglaise que l’on connait sous le nom de Guerre des Deux-Roses, opposant la maison royale de Lancastre à la maison royale d’York.

La guerre prend fin en 1485, quand le dernier des rois Plantagenêt Richard III d’Angleterre meurt au champ d’honneur, et qu’Henri VII devient roi.

La maison de Lancastre descendait de Jean de Gand, duc de Lancastre et 3e fils du roi Édouard III.

Celle d’York descendait de son frère Edmond de Langley (1341-1402), 4e fils du roi Édouard III, devenu duc d’York en 1385.

L’emblème de la maison de Lancastre était la rose rouge, tandis que celui des York était la rose blanche, ce qui est à l’origine du nom donné a posteriori à ce conflit.

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Hell on Wheels saison 2

Voici la seconde saison d’Hell on Wheels, diffusée sur AMC.

Cullen Bohannon continue sa quête à la recherche de ceux qui sont responsables de la mort de sa femme et de son fils, tout comme continue l’expansion vers l’ouest de l’Union Pacific Railroad, dirigée par Thomas “Doc” Durant.

Pendant ce temps, Durant envoie Elam s’occuper d’une bande qui vole la paie des employés.

La tagline de cette saison est : “still fighting … still searching … still raising hell”. Dix épisodes sont prévus pour cette saison.

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Rattlehand - Iron Horse photo

Rattlehand – Iron Horse

Dans quelques jours, la série Hell On Wheels reprend sur AMC et le groupe australien Rattlehand nous offre un morceau intitulé Iron Horse, véritable hommage à la construction de la Pacific Railroad aux Etats-Unis :

Line-up :

  • Josh Shelton – Lead Vocals, Guitar
  • Josh Rippingale – Lead Guitar
  • Glen ‘Fort’ Jarvis – Rhythm Guitar, Mandolin, Harmonies
  • Luke Bushell – Electric Bass, Bullfiddle
  • Steve Wallis – Harmonica, Harmonies
  • Renton Breen – Drums

L’album de Rattlehand devrait sortir fin 2012.

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Hell on Wheels saison 1

Nous avions vu le trailer il y a quelques mois, voici le début d’Hell on Wheels sur AMC.

Dans cette série-western, Cullen Bohannan (Anson Mount), ancien propriétaire d’esclaves et soldat confédéré, est déterminé à venger le viol et meurtre de sa femme en traquant et tuant les soldats de l’Union responsables de cette infamie.

Il voyage vers l’ouest et demande à travailler à la construction du premier chemin de fer transcontinental américain.

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Wolfgang Gartner - Illmerica photo

Wolfgang Gartner – Illmerica

Joey Youngman aka Wolfgang Gartner nous offre une superbe vidéo sur l’histoire passée, présente et future des USA, avec son titre Illmerica :

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The American Civil War in 4 minutes photo

The American Civil War in 4 minutes

Voici une petite rétrospective en images de la guerre de sécession américaine (1871-1875) : une seconde représente une semaine, ce qui permet de dévoiler l’ensemble du conflit opposant le Nord au Sud de manière continue, montrant les avancées des deux camps de manière très explicite, à la manière d’une marée militaire, avec des explosions pour symboliser les batailles majeures.

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The Reconstruction photo

After the American Civil War: The Reconstruction

Introduction

The American Civil War resolved 2 important questions that had not been addressed by the Founding Fathers:

  • the question of sovereignty and the place of the States in the Union
  • the question derived from the conflict about the constitutional protection of slavery

With the collapse of the Confederacy, the Government confronted the difficult issue related to the readmission of the seceding States and the citizenship of former slaves.

A new phase

On April 13th, 1865, President Lincoln and his wife went to Ford Theater in Washington to see the play called Our American Cousin.

At 10:30, the president was shot in the back in the dark. A man, named Booth, jumped onto the stage and shouted “Sic semper tyrannis“. He was captured a few days later. Lincoln died the following day.

Lincoln was succeeded by his vice-president Andrew Johnson. The biggest problem Johnson faced was how to deal with the defeated South.

A few weeks before, Lincoln had asked the Americans to “bind up the nation’s wounds” and rebuild their homeland.

Lincoln blamed individual Southern leaders for the war, rather than the people of the seceding states. He intended to punish only these guilty individuals and to let the rest of the South”s people alone.

Johnson introduced plans to reunite the nation. As soon as the leaders of the South would be loyal to the US government, they could elect new state assemblies to run their states.

When they were made to accept the 13th amendments, Johnson reintegrated them in the Union. Some southerners tried to resist any changes that threaten their way of life. They were scared to give rights to their former slaves.

The assembly of Mississippi even said: “to be free however doesn’t make a negro a citizen or entitle him to social or political equality with the white men”.

All their assemblies voted laws to keep blacks in inferior conditions. These laws were called the Black Codes.

The ruling whites intended the blacks to remain unskilled, uneducated, and land-less with no legal protection or rights of their own.

The Black Codes refused them the vote, said they could not vote on juries and forbade them to give evidence in court against white men.

In Mississippi, blacks were not allowed to buy or to rent farmland. As a result, it was as if blacks were still slaves.

A growing anger…

Set place in the North about the Black Codes. As usual, this conflict will bring about extremist positions.

In Congress, the Radical Republicans believed that the most important reason for fighting the Civil War was to free the blacks. They were determined that neither they nor the blacks were going to be cheated.

They said Johnson was treating Southerners too kindly and that they were taking advantage of it: “they have not been punished as they deserved“.

In July 1866, despite the President’s position, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act and set up an organization, the Freedmen’s Bureau. Both these measures were intended to ensure blacks were not cheated of their rights.

Moreover, the introduction of the 14th Amendment gave blacks full rights of citizenship, including the right to vote. All the former Confederate States except Tennessee refused to accept it.

In March 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, dismissed the white Governments of the South, and placed them under military rule.

By 1870, all southern states had new “reconstruction governments“. Most of them were made up of blacks, a few white Southerners, and white men from the North.

The newly arrived Northerners were referred to as “carpetbaggers” by the Southerners opposing them. Any white Southerner who cooperated with the carpetbaggers were referred to with much contempt as “scalawags“.

Most white southerners supported the Democratic Party. These southern Democrats claimed that the reconstruction governments were incompetent and dishonest.

There was some truth in this claim. Many of the new black members in the assembly were inexperienced and poorly educated (and many carpetbaggers were thieves).

But reconstruction governments also contained honest men who tried to improve the South. They passed laws to take care of orphans and the blind, to encourage new industries and the building of railroad, to build schools for both black and white children.

Yet, none of these improvements stopped white southerners from hating reconstruction governments just because they aimed to give blacks the same rights that whites had.

Some of them were determined to prevent this: they organized terrorist groups to make the white men the masters once more. The aim was to threaten and frighten black people.

The most feared terrorist group was a secret society called Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Its members dressed in white sheets and hoods to mask their faces. They rode by night through the countryside killing the Blacks who were trying to improve their position.

Their symbol was the burning wooden cross placed outside the homes of their attended victims. This use of violence and fear helped white racists to win back the Governments of the South.

The final failure

By 1876, republican supporters of reconstruction governments won only 3 states.

In 1877, when Congress withdrew the troops from the South, white Democrats won control too. 1877 marked the failure of the reconstruction governments for the North.

From this time onwards, southern blacks were treated more and more like second-class citizens. Most serious, they were robbed of their right to vote.

Some southern States prevented them from voting by saying that only people paying a poll-tax could vote. They made the tax so high that the blacks could not afford to pay. Some blacks tried to pay but the tax collector refused their money.

Besides, “Grandfather Clauses” were used to prevent blacks from voting. These clauses allowed the vote only to people whose grandfather had been allowed to vote in 1865 and most blacks had got the right to vote a year later, in 1866. It took away their right to vote.

In Louisiana for instance, there were 164 088 white voters and 130 444 black voters before 1898. After Louisiana introduced the “grandfather clauses”, there were 125 437 white voters and only 5 320 black voters.

Once blacks lost the vote, taking away their other rights was easy. Strict racial segregation was enforced on trains, in parks, in schools, in restaurants, and even in cemeteries.

Any black who dared to break these laws was likely to end up in prison or worse. In the 1890s, there was an average of 150 blacks killed illegally and lynched.

Conclusion

The Civil War and the Reconstruction were lost but the Reconstruction had not been for nothing. It was the boldest attempt to achieve racial justice in the United States.

Furthermore, the 14th Amendment is especially important because it was the foundation of the Civil Rights movement and it made it possible for Martin Luther King to protest on behalf of all black Americans.