I was pretty fascinated by the fact that Jamaicans today speak English because of William Penn’s father (as we learned this week in quizzo), but I was unable to find a lot of information about the English takeover of the island. Apparently, Penn and his crew had tried to attack Hispaniola in 1655 but were repelled, so they had to settle for Jamaica, which was not considered very valuable at the time and was much less heavily fortified. He defeated the Spanish and took over the island, and it remained in English hands until 1962.

Here’s another interesting fact I came across about Penn Sr.:
The origin of grog lies with Vice-Admiral William Penn, father of the founder of Pennsylvania. In 1655, during Penn’s campaign for Cromwell in the Indies, Penn arrived in Barbados and captured Jamaica. Unfortunately Jamaica had few stores of beer or wine. Jamaica did, however, have rum. Penn, therefore, began the use of rum as a ration.

This makes it seem more like Penn introduced the English world to rum than to grog, as the origins of grog don’t date until 1740. So not only did the Penn family give us Pennsylvania, they gave us reggae (if it wasn’t for the William Penn it would be in Spanish, and probably use a bunch of horns) and rum. And is that a baseball bat in his right hand? Did the Penns invent baseball too?

A couple of pretty cool Philly history pieces to look at today.

• First of all, historyofphilly.com has a video that looks at Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession through Philadelphia.
• Secondly, a write up I did yesterday about how booze helped the Philadelphia Athletics win the 1871 baseball pennant.
• Finally, phillyhistory.org has a write up on a couple of spectacular hotels that were in downtown Philly.

From the state that brought us George W. Bush, Jerry Jones, and Vanilla Ice, we now get this: Bill Nye “The Science Guy” was booed in Waco, Texas for suggesting the Moon did not generate its own light, but reflected light from the sun…several people in the audience stormed out, including woman with three small children who shouted, “We believe in God!” and left.

Almost makes you wish the ATF had burned the whole damn town down.

As you are well aware, I was in Puerto Rico with a “travel companion” last week. Well, I decided to write in today’s Metro about a couple from Philly I met while in Vieques. In other Puerto Rico news, here are some photos from the trip. We were in the rain forest south of Utuado for the first couple of days. A very hairy drive to get there over switchback roads, but it was worth it. Very secluded, extremely relaxing. Took a few hikes, but other than that, just sort of loafed around and drank rum and juice. Then we headed to Vieques, where we went to the tiny town of Esperanza. The island is best known for being the place that the US Navy was driven out of in 2003. It is home to some of the most beautiful, most desolate beaches in the Caribbean. We hiked to nearby Sun Bay, which was beautiful, and also did the Bioluminescent Bay kayak trip. It looked a lot like this. It was very cool, though kayaking at night while wet was a little chilly. Finally, we headed to Old San Juan. Stayed at a very cool, fairly cheap hotel called the Casablanca, which was right in the middle of everything. San Juan was terrific. Great walking town, although the sidewalks were a little narrow. But lots of great restaurants, Spanish architecture, and the El Morro Fort was very cool. I would definitely like to go back to San Juan when I have more time, but we were able to get a lot of hiking around the town in in our short time there. So there you have it. Great trip, lots of fun, I definitely recommend Puerto Rico as a vacation destination (though to be honest I like Mexico a little bit better.)