The Alpha-Bestiary
J is for Johannes
The jackal from Jersey
Who journeyed from Jamestown to Johannesburg
Looking for jewels to grace his Joanna’s collar.
He caught the jaundice from a jerboa in Jakarta.
Joanna declared she despised a yellow jackal
And joined a Janissary from Jamshedpur
On a matrimonial jaunt to Japan.
J is for Johannes
The jackal from Jersey
Who journeyed from Jamestown to Johannesburg
Looking for jewels to grace his Joanna’s collar.
He caught the jaundice from a jerboa in Jakarta.
Joanna declared she despised a yellow jackal
And joined a Janissary from Jamshedpur
On a matrimonial jaunt to Japan.
A jerboa is a hopping desert rodent that evades predators (including jackals) with rapid and frequent, difficult-to-predict changes in speed and direction. The Bailliwick of Jersey is near Normandie, France; William the Conqueror was duke of Normandie when he took the throne of England in 1066, but king John lost the dukedom to France in 1204 though he retained Jèrriais (Jersey) and other Channel islands. However, it is not part of the UK: it is a self-governing parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with its own financial, legal, and judicial systems, although the European Commission recognizes that the UK is responsible for its external relationships. Johannesburg, South Africa, was founded in 1886 after gold was discovered nearby; within a decade its population was 100,000. The name probably came from 2 of the surveyors of the site, Christian Johannes Joubert and Johann Rissik, although its 1st administrator was Johannes Meyer. Daerah Khusus Ibu Kota Jakarta is the largest and capital city of Indonesia, on the coast of Java, the world's most populous island. It was founded in 397 as Sunda Kelapa, but after Fatahillah recaptured the city from the Portuguese in 1527 for the sultanate of Demak it was renamed Jayakarta ("victorious city"). From 1619, as Batavia, it was the de facto capital of the Dutch East Indies. In 1942, when the Japanese took control, the city was renamed Jakaruta tokubetsu-shi and then adopted its current name after independence in 1949.
ReplyDeleteWhen Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata was in Manchester, England, to establish a branch of his father's trading he heard Thomas Carlyle declare that "the nation which gains control of iron soon acquires the control of gold." When he was 29 he founded his own trading company and then went into the textile business. Although he consulted with steelmakers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, about acquiring he most advanced technology for his plant, he was unable to achieve his ambition of establishing a steel company before his death,; however, 4 years later his son Dorabji founded the Tata Iron and Steel Company at Sakchi,in the future state of Jharkhand, which the viceroy Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford, renamed Jamshedpur in Jamsetji's honor, and the new city was laid out on the basis of Jamsetji's ambitious plans and is still administered by the family.
The Janissaries (yeñiçeri, "new soldiers") were elite infantry units that established during the reign of Murad I in the 14th century. The 1st modern standing army in Europe, they began as an elite corps of slaves composed of kidnapped Christian boys who were converted to Islam. Forbidden to marry or engage in trade, their complete loyalty to the Sultan was expected, and they were renowned for their internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order until the 17th century, when, due to a dramatic increase in the size of the Osmanli army, the corps' recruitment policy was relaxed and civilians were able to buy their way into it. By then the corps had such prestige and influence that they dominated the government, stage palace coups, and hinder efforts to modernize the army structure. In 1807 they deposed Selim III after he formed the modern "New Order" modern army. The reformers managed to install Mahmud II to the throne in 1808. In 1826 he provoked them to mutiny and slew 4,000 of them in their barracks and then exiled or executed the survivors.