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for-valour · 11 months

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sorry for the following solemn question, was there any story the day bertie died? the only one i that i know is that lilibet didn't know until hours later when philip broke the news to her because they were in kenya. what about queen mary, queen mum, and margaret? this come to my mind after watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHXla__FEiY the way the queen mum actress runs while crying his name just broke my heart.

Thanks for your question - and really sorry it took me ages to get back to you 😣. I've written a little bit about how Margot, May and Elizabeth were all affected by Bertie's death, and I hope I'm answering this correctly!

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret was at Sandringham when her father died. She recalled hearing him laugh 'heartily at a joke he had just heard' and then go happily to bed at 10:30pm. When she learned of his passing in the morning, she was absolutely distraught. It is said that she was even prescribed sedatives to help her sleep at night, and Christopher Warwick wrote (in his 2017 biography, Princess Margaret: A Life of Contrasts) that she would frequently weep and cry out, 'Why did he have to die so young?'

A couple of months after Bertie’s death, Margaret wrote to a family friend, 'He was such a wonderful person, the very heart and centre of our happy family. Everything seemed to come from him and no-one could have had a more devoted and thoughtful father. He was always so very much alive so that at this lovely Easter time he doesn’t feel so very far away and one is comforted by all thoughts of happiness for him and his love for us all.' Even the fact that Margaret’s own funeral was held on the 50th anniversary of Bertie's death also shows just how close she held her father in her heart - right until the very end.

The Queen Mother When The Queen Mother was praised for her courage in getting through her husband’s funeral without crying, she replied: 'Not in private.' In fact, she was so heartbroken after his death that she travelled all the way to Caithness in Scotland to be allowed to mourn alone (I've actually been there and it is *very* remote). This was also the time when she discovered Castle Mey, which she bought to escape to ‘occasionally when life becomes hideous’ - which I imagine was linked to those dark days when she felt the loss of Bertie all over again.

She said in a letter to Queen Mary: 'I flew to his room and thought he was in a deep sleep, he looked so peaceful — and then I realised what had happened.' She also further confided in her mother-in-law, 'I know that you loved Bertie dearly, and he was my whole life, and one can only be deeply thankful for the utterly happy years we had together. He was so wonderfully thoughtful and loving, and I don’t believe he ever thought of himself at all… I cannot bear to think of Lilibet, so young to bear such a burden — I do feel for you so darling Mama — to lose two dear sons, and Bertie still so young and so precious — it is almost more than one can bear…'

Queen Mary Having already lost two sons (Prince John at the age of 13, and Prince George in an RAF plane crash just before his 40th birthday), the death of a third child, her beloved Bertie whom she was so close to and so proud of, deeply traumatised her. Queen Mary said to Princess Marie Louise: 'I have lost three sons through death, but I have never been privileged to be there to say a last farewell to them.' Mary herself also remarked that she spent a lot of time talking to her daughter-in-law (the grieving Queen Mother) 'of much that was in our poor tattered hearts.'

Queen Mary’s health was already struggling in the early 1950s, and it wouldn't be surprising that she suffered further after King George VI's death. The sombre photograph of her, Queen Elizabeth and The Queen Mother in mourning dress was taken whilst they were stood at King’s Cross Station in London, awaiting the arrival of Bertie’s coffin from Sandringham for the ‘Lying-in-State' at Westminster Hall. Contrary to popular belief it was not taken on the day of the funeral itself, which she was too unwell (and perhaps too distressed?) to attend.

Sources: Princess Margaret: A Life of Contrasts, by Christopher Warwick. The Queen Mother: The Official Biography, by William Shawcross. Photos: Getty, National Portrait Gallery.

#king george vi #george vi #god save the king #the british royal family #the monarchy #the british monarchy #the royal family #albert duke of york #the queen mother #queen elizabeth the queen mother #princess margaret #queen mary #queen mary of teck #the king's speech #the house of windsor #long live the king #the british empire #queen elizabeth ii

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spanishroyals · 2 years

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September 15th, 2022 is Queen Letizia's 50th birthday.

Casa Real informs that there will not be photos or any special celebration. Not even a public event, since Queen Letizia has office work, tomorrow she will attend an event with the Spanish Association Against Cancer and on Monday will fly to London with the King for Queen Elizabeth's funeral. From London, Her Majesty will fly to New York. There she will take part in events at the UN's General Assembly as UNICEF's Mental Health Advocate for children and adolescents and as honorary president of the Spanish Association against Cancer, in events for World's Cancer Research Day.

To celebrate this birthday, associations that work with the Queen have released a video to thank her for her work and wish her a happy birthday.

youtube

The associations taking part in the video are the following:

Foundation Against Drug Addiction, Spanish Red Cross, UNICEF Spain, the Spanish Association against Cancer, the Spanish Federation of Rare Diseases, the Confederation of Mental Health, Aldeas Infantiles, the Royal Patronage of Disabilities, Association for Prevention, Reintegration and Care of Prostituted Women, Association for Rural Women and Families, the Observatory against Domestic Violence, the Romani Secretariat Foundation, Confederation of Deaf People, the Federation of Deaf-Blind People Associations, Mutua Madrileña Foundation, A la Par Foundation, Princess of Girona Foundation, Plena Inclusión, Telefónica Foundation, Integra Foundation, Spanish National Organization of the Blind, Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities, Banco Santander Foundation)

EFE has also spoken with some of these associations on the occasion of Queen Letizia's 50th birthday:

The president of the Spanish Committee of Representatives of People with Disabilities (CERMI), Luis Cayo, has highlighted the "sincere and genuine concern" of the Queen for social causes, which has earned her the "appreciation and esteem" of all the disability sector.

"We feel her as one more disability activist," Cayo stressed.

"Warmth, empathy and involvement" is how the president of the Spanish Federation of Rare Diseases (FEDER), Juan Carrión, describes it, who recalls how, when the Queen began to collaborate with them, the organization was almost completely unknown and, thanks to the media focus on the Queen, have acquired visibility and relevance, even in the UN.

Doña Letizia's collaboration with the organization has also given them great social visibility, and now their work has a greater impact and reaches sectors of the population that they did not reach before, says a spokesperson for the confederation.

Also at UNICEF, they highlight Doña Letizia's ability to "give visibility" to the work of the organization and to the problems and deficiencies of children and adolescents, especially the most vulnerable, says its president in Spain, Gustavo Suárez Pertierra.

In addition, the representatives of the organizations agree in highlighting the capacity and thorough preparation of the Queen before each new meeting, and her willingness to seek solutions and to get personally involved.

Thus, the president of CERMI assures that "the degree of current and conscientious knowledge that she possesses is striking" and the fact that she always "delves into the issues and provides valuable, personal, but very accurate visions."

We have to be very prepared for those meetings because her level of precision and rigorousness is so high that we must have everything covered," he says.

For his part, the president of UNICEF highlights "the active listening, the interest in deepening and debating the issues that are raised and the exhaustive preparation with which the Queen attends the meetings."

The NGOs also underline the human profile and warmth with which Doña Letizia treats the affected people and their families.

Thus, the president of FEDER highlights the "close and very attentive" attitude of the Queen and her "great capacity to listen and connect with each one of the people in the group, their stories and challenges," says Carrión.

In fact, in all FEDER events in which she has taken part, Doña Letizia “always looks for the way to talk to fathers, mothers and patients to learn about their experience first-hand. And then she incorporates those personal stories into her interventions to bring society closer to the more human side of problems.”

The Confederation of Mental Health also points out the "exquisite and close manner" of the Queen, who remembers "the names and surnames of each person she has met, especially each woman who shared with her their stories, an experience or a poem"

The relationship of this organization with Doña Letizia began in her years as Princess of Asturias, a decade ago, and since then "it has remained firm and has consolidated", to the point that the organization allocates to the Queen a large part of the merit of having achieved a UN Resolution in 2021 in favor of the importance of mental health.

The Queen has also actively worked to promote relations between organizations from different countries, especially with Latin America, and has shown "great tenacity to overcome collective challenges," he points out.

The Queen's international prominence and willingness to get involved with the organizations with which she works is also evident in the fact that Letizia has recently been named UNICEF Global Advocate for Mental Health for Children and Adolescents, with deepens her commitment to the organization.

#spanish royal family #queen letizia #queen letizia at 50 (1972 2022)#I can't believe there's nothing from Casa Real today #bourbon #Youtube

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xtruss · 1 year

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The 15 Year Battle For Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Memorial March after assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill into law, designating the third Monday in January a federal holiday in observance of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The legislation to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first introduced just four days after his assassination on April 4, 1968. Still, it would take 15 years of persistence by civil rights activists for the holiday to be approved by the federal government and an additional 17 years for it to be recognized in all 50 states. Today, it is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer and improve their communities.

Pinback button promoting Martin Luther King Day 1982. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Despite the national fervor inspired by King's death, the bill to create a holiday in his honor languished for years with limited congressional support. However, Democratic Michigan Congressman, John Conyers, who first proposed the bill on April 8, 1968, was not deterred. He continued to reintroduce the legislation every year with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, which Conyers helped found.

To me, [King] is the outstanding international leader of the 20th century without ever holding office. What he did — I doubt anyone else could have done. — Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) January 18, 2015

In 1979, on the 50th anniversary of King’s birth, the bill finally came to a vote in the House. However, even with a petition of 300,000 signatures in support, the backing of President Jimmy Carter, and testimonials from King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, the bill still was rejected by five votes in the House. Republican Missouri Congressman Gene Taylor led the opposition, which cited the costs of an additional federal holiday and traditions which exclude private citizens from receiving recognition with public holidays named in their honor.

Even though it failed to pass in the House, public support for the bill continued to grow, in no small part due to musician Stevie Wonder. The Motown singer and songwriter’s 1980 album “Hotter Than July” featured the song “Happy Birthday,” which served as an ode to King's vision and a rallying cry for recognition of his achievements with a national holiday.

Coretta Scott King and Stevie Wonder during M.L.K Gala at The Atlanta Civic Center in Atlanta Georgia, January 01, 1982. Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images

I just never understood / How a man who died for good / Could not have a day that would / Be set aside for his recognition ... in peace, our hearts will sing / Thanks to Martin Luther King — Stevie Wonder. "Happy Birthday" Hotter than July (1980)

Wonder continued to spread his message with regular appearances alongside Coretta Scott King at rallies. He also capped a four-month tour with a benefit concert on the National Mall, where King delivered his famous “I have a Dream” speech 18 years earlier.

When the bill again made it to the house floor in 1983, fifteen years after King’s murder, support was overwhelming. Working together, Coretta Scott King, the Congressional Black Caucus, and Stevie Wonder amassed a six million signature petition in favor of the holiday. The bill easily passed in the House with a vote of 338 to 90. However, when the bill moved onto the Senate, Republican North Carolina Senator, Jesse Helms attempted to dismiss the legislation by submitting documents alleging that the civil rights leader harbored ties to the communist party. Outraged by the personal attack on King's character, Democratic New York Congressman Daniel Patrick Moynihan threw the more than 300 page binder to the ground and stomped on what he described as a "packet of filth." After two days of debate, the bill passed in the Senate and President Ronald Regan reluctantly agreed to sign it into law.

In the presence of Coretta Scott King (2nd from left), President Ronald Reagan signs a bill making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday. Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

I would have preferred a non-holiday in King's honor but since they seem bent on making it a national holiday, I believe the symbolism of that day is important enough that I will sign that legislation when it reaches my desk. — President Ronald Regan, October 20, 1983

Despite the holiday’s federal recognition, statewide observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day is far from uniform. Some states include additional holidays, which are celebrated concurrently with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Arizona and New Hampshire, for example, celebrate “Civil Rights Day” and Wyoming celebrates “Wyoming Equality Day.” Other states, like Alabama and Mississippi, have combined the King holiday with “Robert E. Lee Day” to honor the birthday of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who was born on January 19. However, Martin Luther King Day has been recognized in all 50 states since early 2000.

On August 23, 1994, the King Holiday and Service Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Inspired by King’s life of service, Congressman John Lewis and former Senator Harris Wofford proposed the legislation to encourage Americans to find common causes and methods of improving their communities. In honor of Congressman Lewis’ initiative to make the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday “a day on, not a day off” the National Museum of African American History and Culture has organized donation drives to those in need and partnered with corporations to provide music, film screenings and interactive activities to the public. If you are interested in giving back to your community this year, we encourage you to explore our website for volunteer opportunities or participate in the transcription of the Freedmen’s Bureau papers.**

**The Freedmen's Bureau Records

The Museum is focusing attention on the post-Civil War transition of enslaved people to freedom by making the records of the Freedmen’s Bureau accessible online.

The United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, was created by Congress in 1865 to assist in the political and social reconstruction of post-war Southern states and to help formerly enslaved people make the transition from slavery to freedom and citizenship. In the process, the Bureau created millions of records that contain the names of hundreds of thousands of formerly enslaved individuals and Southern white refugees.

Freedmen's Bureau Search Portal

The Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal provides unprecedented opportunities for family historians and genealogists to search for their ancestors and for scholars to research a variety of topics related to slavery and Reconstruction in the Freedmen’s Bureau records. The portal makes possible for the first time the ability to research multiple sets of Freedmen’s Bureau data in one place, allowing users to search indexed data for specific names, places, and dates and transcribed data for topics, subjects, institutions, and any other words or phrases. Matches to search criteria will be highlighted in the results.

Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project

The Museum has collaborated with the Smithsonian Transcription Center to transcribe more than 1.7 million image files from the Freedmen’s Bureau records. The Transcription Center is a platform where digital volunteers can transcribe and review transcriptions of Smithsonian collections. The Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project is the largest crowd sourcing initiative ever sponsored by the Smithsonian.

Once completed, the Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project will allow full text searches that provide access to both images and transcriptions of the original records. Family historians, genealogists, students, and scholars around the world will have online access to these records. In addition, these transcribed records will be keyword searchable, reducing the effort required to find a person or topic. Transcribing these original documents will increase our understanding of the post-Civil War era and our knowledge of post-Emancipation family life.

History of the Freedmen's Bureau

Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands in 1865 to assist in the reconstruction of the South and to aid formerly enslaved individuals transition to freedom and citizenship. Administered by the War Department, the Bureau followed the department’s war-inspired record-keeping system. These handwritten records include letters, labor contracts, lists of food rations issued, indentures of apprenticeship, marriage and hospital registers and census lists. They provide a unique view into the lives of newly freed individuals and the social conditions of the South after the war.

The Bureau was responsible for providing assistance to four million formerly enslaved individuals and hundreds of thousands of impoverished Southern whites. The Bureau provided food, clothing, medical care, and legal representation; promoted education; helped legalize marriages; and assisted African American soldiers and sailors in securing back pay, enlistment bounties, and pensions. In addition, the Bureau promoted a system of labor contracts to replace the slavery system and tried to settle freedmen and women on abandoned or confiscated land. The Bureau was also responsible for protecting freedmen and women from intimidation and assaults by Southern whites. The Bureau set up offices in major cities in the 15 Southern and border states and the District of Columbia. Under-funded by Congress and opposed by President Andrew Johnson, the Bureau only operated between 1865 and 1872.

The Freedmen’s Bureau plays a key role in the Museum’s Slavery and Freedom and Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom: The Era of Segregation, 1877-1968 exhibitions. In these exhibitions, the Freedmen’s Bureau provides a backdrop against which we see African Americans resisting white efforts to deny them “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The Freedmen’s Bureau records are also featured in an Interactive exhibition in the Robert Frederick Smith Explore Your Family History Center on the Museum’s second floor.

The National Archives and Records Administration preserves the original Freedmen’s Bureau records.

The Bureau helped support schools like this one in New Bern, North Carolina, to educate newly freed children. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

You’ll find African American genealogists are quite excited about the Freedmen’s Bureau Project. Each Indexed document brings us closer to reclaiming our ancestral heritage and historical past. — Hollis Gentry, Museum Genealogy Specialist

Freedman's Village was located on what is now Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA. Courtesy of Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-117892

Working on the Freedman’s Bureau Project has shed a light on the past for me that I never would’ve otherwise been able to experience. In working with these records, I gained a new understanding about how people lived. I hope the work we’ve done will be valuable for generations to come as people delve into their pasts. — Libby Herndon, Museum Volunteer

African Americans reported concerns and filed legal claims with agents at the Bureau’s field offices creating millions of handwritten documents. Courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Collections

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heavenboy09 · 1 year

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Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 To A Very Talented & Distinguished Actor Of Epic Blockbusters, Scifi, Biographical Dramas, Independent & Riverting Time Period Films Of History & etc

He is an American actor. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring as Władysław Szpilman in Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at age 29, becoming the youngest actor to win in that category. He is the second male American actor after Christopher Lambert to receive the César Award for Best Actor.

Other successful films that He has starred in are The Thin Red Line (1998), The Village (2004), King Kong (2005), Predators (2010) and Midnight in Paris (2011). He is a frequent collaborator of Wes Anderson's, having starred in four of Anderson's films, The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Splice (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and The French Dispatch (2021). In 2017, he portrayed Luca Changretta in the fourth season of the BBC series Peaky Blinders. In 2022, he portrayed Arthur Miller in the Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde and also starred as Pat Riley in the first season of the HBO sports drama series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.

Born On April 13th, 1973

He was born in Woodhaven, Queens, New York City, the son of Sylvia Plachy, a photographer, and Elliot Brody, a retired history professor and painter. His Father is of Polish Jewish descent; His mother, who was raised Catholic, was born in Budapest, Hungary, and is the daughter of a Catholic Hungarian aristocrat father and a Czech Jewish mother, although He says he was raised "without a strong connection" to either Judaism or Christianity.

As a child, He performed magic shows at children's birthday parties as "The Amazing Adrien". He attended I.S. 145 Joseph Pulitzer Middle School and New York's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. His parents enrolled him in acting classes to distance him from the dangerous children with whom he associated. He attended summer camp at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. He attended Stony Brook University before transferring to Queens College for a semester.

He received widespread recognition when he was cast as the lead in Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002). To prepare for the role, He withdrew for months, gave up his apartment and his car, broke up with his then-girlfriend, learned how to play Chopin on the piano; at 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) tall, he lost 30 pounds (14 kg), dropping him to 130 lb (59 kg). The role won him an Academy Award for Best Actor, making him, at age twenty nine, the youngest actor ever to win the award, and, to date, the only winner under the age of thirty. He also won a César Award for his performance.

Please Wish This Outstanding Actor Of Incredible Acting Of Creative Roles In Movies A Very Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊

You Know Him

& You Have To Love Him

The 1

& The Only

MR. ADRIEN NICHOLAS BRODY

HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU MR. BRODY & HERE'S TO MANY MORE YEARS TO COME.

#adrien brody #the pianist #Spotify

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whitneyfanclublog · 1 month

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Wishing Diana Ross a very happy 80th birthday 🎉 #legend

Watch Whitney and Diana sing the Carole King classic “You’ve Got A Friend” at Muhammad Ali’s 50th Birthday Special: https://youtu.be/XAKmnMHMOmY?si=3z658WS1yry6Ouci

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denimbex1986 · 5 months

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'...Murray Gold (composer, 2005 onwards) Once upon a time at Portchester Northern County Junior School, my best friend was Gavin Fuller. We talked endlessly about Doctor Who. Gavin went on to win Mastermind, answering questions about the show, and to write about Doctor Who for The Telegraph. I ended up being a composer on many episodes. There were concerts of my music at the Albert Hall, Wembley, the Sydney Opera House and many other venues, all with music inspired by this gifted time-travelling eccentric. If there was ever a show I would wish to be tethered to for all time, Doctor Who is that show. Happy birthday, you raggedy old, young thing.

Jacqueline King (played Sylvia Noble, 2006-2023) The delight of being cast in The Runaway Bride was immense, quickly followed by the surprise and joy of Catherine Tate wanting to do a whole series. And I got to go with her! Then the news that we were back together for the specials. The Noble family reunited, after 12 years! That was moving, I can tell you.

Ingrid Oliver (played Osgood, Unit scientist, 2013-2015) Is it cheesy to say the fans? Or Whovians, as they’re officially known? They are what have moved me most about being a part of the show. Playing Osgood has allowed me to travel the world meeting people at conventions for whom the show is a hugely important part of their lives. To see people dressed up as my character – men and women, old and young, from all walks of life – is such an extraordinary thing. So that, and swapping wine tips with John Hurt on the 50th anniversary episode.

Julie Gardner (producer, 2005 onwards) A greatest moment? Meeting my husband, Billie Piper, Kylie Minogue, [Torchwood episode] Day One 2004 filming with a man in a prosthetic pretending to be a space pig, the Proms, the Bafta for best series … There’s been so much laughter, love and hard work along the way. There have also been dark times, including a very gloomy late-night curry in the BBC Llandaff canteen when it all seemed hopeless. But what do I remember most? My car journeys with Russell T Davies. The two of us in my Mini Cooper, his head touching the ceiling. The conversations were everything: furious, frantic and raw. Some of those conversations changed my life.'

#Doctor Who #60th Anniversary #Julie Gardner #Billie Piper #Voyage of the Damned #Kylie Minogue #Russell T. Davies #Ingrid Oliver #Osgood #The Day of the Doctor #John Hurt #Jacqueline King #Sylvia Noble #The Runaway Bride #Catherine Tate #Murray Gold

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daddyscore · 6 months

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Pakistan's Mohamamd Rizwan Has This Wish For Virat Kohli's Birthday

The premium batsman of the Indian cricket team, Virat Kohli, is turning 35 very soon. The birthday plans of Kohli are aligned with Team India's ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 campaign, and his fans and well-wishers are hopeful of seeing the iconic batter equal the record of Sachin Tendulkar for most ODI tons, which is 49, on his special day. When Pakistan wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan was informed of Kohli's birthday on November 5, he too hoped to see the batting stalwart get his ODI century No. 49.

The Indian cricket team is scheduled to take on South Africa on the occasion of Virat's 35th birthday. Rizwan is hoping to see Kohli score another century, equaling Tendulkar's record on that day.

Rizwan said in a chat, "It is nice to know that his birthday is on November 5th."Wish him all the best and a happy birthday, though I don't celebrate mine, and I don't believe in that. I wish Virat a great one. I hope he can get his 49th ODI hundred on his birthday. And I wish him that he could also get his 50th ODI century in this World Cup."

To mark 'King Kohli's' birthday, the Cricket Association of Bengal has made a grand plan to distribute Kohli masks among the spectators.

#Pakistan #Player #Virat kohli #Cricket #News #birthday wishes #Indian

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pgoeltz · 8 months

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Happy Birthday Tim Scully!!!

Robert "Tim" Scully born August 27, 1944

In heyday of LSD, secret Windsor lab produced millions of Orange Sunshine pills

Inside the Windsor Historical Society museum there are collections of fine art, archaeological artifacts, tools and household gadgets, thousands of items on shelves, in hutches and behind glass, some dating back nearly four centuries.

Two recently added items at the Hembree House - discretely placed posters in the two bathrooms - provide a hint, however, to a time in Windsor's past that is neither well known locally nor widely publicized.

In the late 1960s, a small group of hippie zealots worked feverishly in an old Windsor farmhouse to produce an especially pure form of LSD, on a mission to turn on the world.

Little was known about the clandestine lab because it was never busted. Authorities only found out about it several years after it was dismantled.

That hidden chapter of history had its start in late 1968 when the lab was set up in Windsor. Within a few months it produced roughly 3 pounds of LSD, or enough to make 4.5 million hits of “Orange Sunshine,” a nickname for the orange-colored, barrel-shaped pill that produced an especially powerful psychedelic trip.

It would become one of the iconic drugs of the late 1960s, proclaimed the finest acid in the land by Timothy Leary, the former Harvard instructor who famously advised people to “turn on, tune in, drop out.”

It was the year after the “Summer of Love” when thousands of flower children flocked to San Francisco to get high and groove in The Haight, espousing peace, love and Utopian ways. Some would come north to Sonoma County for back-to-the land communal living.

Among those who discovered Sonoma County was Tim Scully, a wonky East Bay kid and a physics major who'd dropped out of UC Berkeley. He and his associates chose Windsor to make LSD, which they saw as God's gift to humanity because of the ecstatic, consciousness-raising experience they had with the drug.

They chose a secluded Windsor farmhouse screened by trees, on 2 acres off Wilson Lane, now Mitchell Lane, to the west of Baldocchi Way. It was demolished more than 30 years ago to make way for Vintage Green subdivision homes.

“They invented Orange Sunshine, right here in Windsor,” said Windsor Historical Society President Steve Lehmann. “To me it's history. I'm surprised we don't have people doing some kind of pilgrimage here.”

“Sunshine Makers” come to Windsor

When Scully took LSD for the first time in April 1965 he felt at one with God and all living things.

Later that year he began hanging out with the San Francisco-based Grateful Dead, helping as sound engineer for the rock band along with Owsley “Bear” Stanley, already dubbed “The King of LSD” for the purity of his product.

The late Stanley, then 30, took the 21-year-old Scully as his apprentice beginning in mid-1966 at a lab in the basement of a rented house in Point Richmond. Stanley, his girlfriend and Scully cranked out 300,000 doses of “White Lightning” LSD. With the approaching 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, the mayor of Richmond is trying to pinpoint the location and put up a commemorative plaque.

But in October 1966, LSD became illegal in California, and Stanley and Scully moved to Denver to set up a new lab.

The following year, Scully was introduced to Nick Sand, another underground chemist, and they collaborated in San Francisco to produce STP, a new psychedelic which was not yet illegal. Sand, another LSD proselytizer, had been introduced to LSD at Millbrook, an upstate New York farm and experimental community frequented by Leary.

By late 1967, Stanley was busted in connection with a tableting LSD lab in Orinda and Scully moved the Denver lab to another house.

But that was discovered in mid-1968 by authorities, when a water pump broke and police were called to the house while Scully was in Europe looking for precursor chemicals to make LSD.

Sand agreed to finance a new lab if Scully would teach him the Owsley Stanley manufacturing process.

Scully did on the condition that any LSD made be distributed through the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, rather than the Hells Angels. The former was described by some as a hippie mafia, a group of California surfers who evolved into a worldwide drug distribution network. The latter were notorious for gratuitous violence.

By late December, Sand through an intermediary, purchased the farmhouse in Windsor where he and Scully set up the large-scale LSD lab.

The real estate agent was told the buyer was a physics professor who wanted to set up a photography darkroom in the old farmhouse. The money came from proceeds of sales of psychedelics from Sand's STP lab.

Scully and his partner were in a hurry to make as much LSD as they could, because they believed the raw material would become unavailable. The drug is manufactured from lysergic acid, which is produced by the ergot fungus that grows on rye and other grains but can also be synthesized in a lab. The LSD made in Windsor came from one pound of lysergic acid that was made in Italy, but purchased in London.

Like an early version of “Breaking Bad,” a utility room of the Windsor house harbored a lab equipped with flasks, funnels and glass tubes, along with materials ranging from solvents to dry ice, nitrogen gas and - depending on what stage of the chemical process - ultraviolet or yellow bug lights.

There were vacuum pumps running to provide a steady puttering background sound. “The lab was next door to the kitchen where the glassware was scrupulously washed and cleaned,” Scully said.

“We would work until we dropped, sleep for a few hours and get up and at it again,” Sand recalled of the Windsor lab production in the 2015 documentary film “The Sunshine Makers.”

Turning on the world

Scully and Sand wanted people to have the same insight and intense experience of oneness and empathy they had while tripping. Scully “couldn't imagine how hatred, cruelty and destruction could continue to exist in the world, if everyone were to share this experience.”

“We agreed we couldn't just turn on the United States,” he said. “We had to turn on the whole world. Otherwise it would be like unilateral disarmament.”

Helped by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Orange Sunshine spread around the country, to Europe, India and even to American troops in Vietnam, and become part of the vernacular of the day.

While the crystalline LSD was made in Windsor, it was apportioned into tablets mostly in a house in Novato, using a triturate machine that stamped out several million doses.

Scully figured they needed to produce 440 pounds - about 720 million doses of LSD - roughly enough to provide a single dose for everyone in the world willing to try it.

But the law caught up with both men.

A recently minted pilot, Scully was arrested at the Napa Airport in May 1969 on charges stemming from the previous lab in Denver.

Sand, he said, immediately shut down the Windsor lab and remodeled and sanitized the room where it had been.

“Sand and Scully were apparently running this lab in Windsor and they did a good job of keeping it from us. We didn't find the lab,” retired narcotics officer Patrick Clark said in the 2015 documentary “The Sunshine Makers.”

But federal grand jury indictments and the testimony of Billy Hitchcock, the wealthy owner of Millbrook and a friend of theirs who had visited the Windsor lab, helped convict Scully, Sand and others.

In 1974, Scully was sentenced to 20 years in prison for LSD manufacturing and distribution, and Sand got 15 years. Both went to McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary in Washington state and were even cellmates.

Scully was released on an appeal bond partway through his prison term, and had his sentence cut in half, enabling him to be paroled after 3 ½ years.

He had earned his Ph.D. in psychology in prison and in 1979, was named Washington State Jaycees Outstanding Young Man of the Year. He was nominated based on his development of a computer device that enabled a person he knew with severe cerebral palsy to communicate using her knee movements that produced words on a TV screen.

While Scully said he knew by 1970 that he never wanted anything to do with manufacturing drugs, Sand was unrepentant.

While out on appeal, he bolted and spent the next 20 years evading authorities and living under various aliases. He spent time in India at Guru Rajneesh's ashram. When finally arrested in Canada in 1996, Sand had more than $500,000 in cash and gold and approximately 430,000 doses of LSD, according to newspaper accounts.

Sand went back to prison before being released in 2000. He died April 24 at his home in Lagunitas from apparent heart problems.

Busy in the woods

Scully, 72, now lives in Mendocino County in the backwoods community of Albion on a ridge near the Pacific Ocean. He said he long ago gave up any criminal activity.

Before his conviction and prison time, he founded his own electronics company and still repairs old instruments and computers in his one-bedroom house, cluttered with thousands of books, file cabinets, computer monitors and buckets of firewood for his wood stove.

His longtime partner, Alice Einhorn, lives on the 4-acre property, in a nearby house.

During a recent interview at his home, the gray-bearded Scully, wearing a slight smile, Panama hat, corduroy jeans and a blue hoodie sweatshirt, answered questions with the meticulous detail that hints at his slight Asperger's syndrome, a compulsive condition manifesting itself in inflexible routines, or pursuit of specific, narrow areas of interest.

In Scully's case, it was the way he ate the same type of spaghetti and butter dinner every night for decades, until health problems forced him to change.

For the past 20 years he's been gathering the history of underground LSD manufacturing and has a large database linking chronologies, court records and PDFs of people, labs and locations. He says it will be useful for historians and university libraries. He is also working on a memoir.

After LSD, Scully became interested in making brain wave biofeedback instruments. In a two-page spread in 1970, Life magazine referenced his company, Aquarius Electronics, in an articled entitled “turning on with Alpha waves.”

When it was apparent his drug record would prevent him from teaching, he started working as a consultant to a software computer corporation, joining a techie world where LSD use is not necessarily seen as an automatic disqualifier. Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, for example, admitted using it.

Scully was hired as a full-time software developer for Marin-based Autodesk Inc. before retiring a dozen years ago and now relies on income from some long-term tenants on his property.

Looking back, Scully has a more balanced view than he once did of both the good and the bad that LSD unleashed.

For some it offered an intensely spiritual experience and especially influenced music and art. But it also induces paranoia, and can trigger, or worsen underlying psychiatric disorders. At its height of popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s, thousands of freaked-out kids on “bad trips” were picked up annually by police.

“The majority of the people who took LSD had pretty good experiences,” Scully said. “Certainly a few had serious trouble and quite a few ended up in emergency rooms, because they were frightened. Most were fine the next day, but some had long-term issues.”

Although LSD carried a message of peace and love for him and many others, Scully came to realize over the years that it was “more of an amplifier than a message carrier.” Looking back, he says it was a mistake to make it widely available, “to scatter it to the four winds, so young people who were too young to have fully formed personalities were getting it.

“I have some regret,” he said. “We didn't succeed in saving the world, obviously. Look at who's in the White House now.”

But there is that quirky historic link to Windsor, a town that went from a dusty farm crossroads dubbed “Poor Man's Flat” to a family-friendly bedroom community.

The History Society's Lehmann first found about the LSD connection reading a passing reference on page 266 of an obscure book entitled “Hippie.”

He said the museum has to tread a fine line to avoid sounding like it's promoting a drug, especially considering that fourth-graders visit the museum on school trips.

Lehmann finds the characters involved with the Windsor lab fascinating, “but not everyone smiles when you talk about LSD.”

Still, he noted, the museum doesn't shy away from talking about the area's illegal booze production during Prohibition.

“We're joking about putting up a plaque at the park, across the street from where the farmhouse was,” he said. “I'm wondering if Windsor is ready for such a plaque.”

Editor's note: The article has been updated with the correct name of Owsley “Bear” Stanley and to reflect that Scully studied physics at UC Berkeley but did not obtain a degree there. The location of the LSD lab inside the Windsor home as well as the tableting process in Novato has also been clarified.

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