MonoMonday Number 400

400 hundred years ago was 1721 (MDCCXXI in Roman numerals) so I thought this was a suitable way of celebrating the 400th MM challenge. I photographed the old map, to use as a background to the date, from a book of old maps on Son#3's bookshelf in the bedroom he used to occupy here: the exact date of the map is unknown so it's a bit of a cheat but I reckon it'll suffice.

Lots of interesting things happened in 1721, including:

·         Tsar Peter the Great ended Russian-orthodox patriarchy
·         British Chancellor Exchequer John Aislabie was confined in London Tower
·         JS Bach dedicated his Brandenburg Concertos to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt
·         France & Spain signed the Treaty of Madrid – followed later in the year by England
·         Robert Walpole became Britain's 1st Lord of the Treasury - effective Prime Minister, although that term was never officially used (indeed, it was considered an insult) until much later
·         Michelangiolo dei Conti succeeded Pope Clement XI, as Innocent XIII
·         John Copson became America's 1st insurance agent
·         South Carolina was formally incorporated as a royal colony

...and of particular interest in our Covid pandemic:
·         The deadliest outbreak of smallpox in the history of Boston began (on April 21st) when the British ship HMS Sea Horse arrived in Boston Harbour with a crew of sailors who had survived a smallpox epidemic. One of the Seahorse crew who had cleared quarantine developed symptoms the next day and infected other people in a lodging house. Over the next 10 months, 5,759 cases of smallpox were recorded in Boston and 844 people died of the disease
·         Dr Zabdiel Boylston gave the first smallpox inoculations in America (on June 26th - to his own son, and then to his slave and the slave's infant son


Many thanks to random_angel for hosting this celebratory MM.