Spent the last 20 minutes reading about Pitcairn Islands... holy fucking shit, a third of the male population was in jail for being nonces at the same time. Every time I read about a new small island community there's always some weird shit going on.
“The sun never sets on the British empire.” Variations on the phrase have been used for more than 200 years to describe the scope and power of the nation and its occupied territories. But from a logistical standpoint, Britain gave up the centuries-long imperial distinction last October, when it reached an agreement to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. It was a long time coming for the Chagossians, many of whom have worked for decades to regain control of the island. A joint statement issued between both countries in October vowed the deal helped to “address wrongs of the past and demonstrate the commitment of both parties to support the welfare of Chagossians.”
Technically speaking, however, sunlight continued to shine on at least one portion of British-occupied land for about another six months. The primary holdout? A section of the British Antarctic Territory, including the Pitcairn Islands that experiences perpetual sunlight six months out of the year.
But thanks to cosmic geometry, a major chapter in world history has just now come to a close. As first highlighted last year on Reddit, the spring equinox on March 20 marked the sun’s passage over the celestial equator, kicking off half a year of darkness around the South Pole. And given last year’s deal with Mauritius, this means Thursday night at 10:50 PM EST (2:50 AM on March 21 in London), the sun finally, literally set on the British empire.
It didn’t stay dark for Britain too long, however. About an hour after dusky conditions on the Pitcairn Islands, light began to peek over the horizon roughly 10,000 miles away in Akrotiri and Dhekelia, two non-contiguous British territories located on the island of Cyprus. Meanwhile, Britain is still maintaining a presence at a military base on the Chagos Archipelago’s Diego Garcia island as part of the 2024 agreement.
Britain isn’t the first or last culture with enough global territory to qualify for the “sun never sets” moniker. Similar, solar-based expansionist sentiments date as far back as the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Persian, and Roman empires. The phrase “the empire on which the sun never sets” was first used in reference to the Spanish empire under the 16th century Hapsburg reign of King Charles I, also known as Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. Beginning in the 20th century, similar titles were frequently used to describe the United States. If nothing else, empires may rise and fall, but the sun will outlast them all—at least for about another 5 billion years.
[ - ] dulcima 1 point 1 monthMar 28, 2025 23:10:28 ago (+1/-0)
I'm reading Morgan's Run by Colleen McCullough. Her husband was a descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers. She herself lived in Norfolk Island (once a penal colony where the worst of convicts were sent).
Tourist can visit the Pitcairns but you can only get there by boat.
Being so remote, isolated and inbred, it's not surprising the place is fucked up.
In a novel of sweeping narrative power unequaled since her own beloved worldwide bestseller The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough returns to Australia -- this time with the story of its birth. At the center of her new novel is Richard Morgan, son of a Bristol tavern-keeper, devoted husband and loving father, sober and hardworking craftsman. By the machinations of fate and the vagaries of the 18th-century English judicial system, he is consigned as a convict to the famous "First Fleet," which set sail, bearing, as an experiment in penology, 582 male and 193 female felons sentenced to transportation, in May of 1787 for the continent that Captain Cook had discovered only a few years earlier. The word "epic" is overused, but no other word can do justice to one of the most grueling and significant voyages in human history or to the courage of the convicts whose sufferings were not ended but had only just begun when they set foot on Australian soil at Botany Bay on January 19th, 1788. Of those convicts, Richard Morgan stood out, not only for his strength and his calm determination to let no man bully him, but also for his intelligence, his fair-mindedness, his common sense, and his willingness to help others. To these qualities must be added a certain innate dignity that hinted, even in the most terrible conditions, at a life marked by tragedies that would have broken most men. In Richard Morgan, Colleen McCullough has created one of her most compelling characters. We see through Morgan's eyes the two worlds in which the story takes place: that of 18th-century Bristol, where Morgan was born and expected to live out his life, and that of a convicted felon sent to settle a hostile new world. When the book begins, Richard Morgan is a contented man -- happily married, with a child he adores. Then, piece by piece, his idyll crumbles until he finds himself led into an ambiguous relationship with a beautiful young woman, whose dissolute protector seeks vengeance on Morgan to protect his own skin. He endures the agonies of bereavement and financial loss, incarceration in prison and aboard the notorious "hulks," then the horrors of the journeys to Botany Bay and Norfolk Island, where he finds against all odds a new love and a new life. Richard Morgan's story is true, but in making Morgan the central figure of her novel, Colleen McCullough has created a hero whom no reader will ever forget; she has written not only a great adventure and a powerful love story, but also a book that combines the elements of Tom Jones and Mutiny on the Bounty. Morgan's Run is great fiction, full of drama, passion, history, love, and hatred, full-blooded and totally engrossing, a stunning work that is at once rich entertainment -- and a revelation.
[ - ] dulcima 1 point 1 monthMar 29, 2025 20:08:43 ago (+1/-0)
It's a good read. You have to read through more than 300 pages till the action takes place in Port Jackson, but it's interesting from a convict POV. I'm not past the 500 page mark (the whole thing is nearly 900 pages long.)
I don't think they teach kids about the privations and brutality convicts faced (even the marines were treated harshly). Even when I was at school the main focus was on Aboriginals rather than the hardships convicts and early settlers faced.
McCullough's series of Roman novels has good reviews - I think I've got her Caesar one in the bundle of second hand books I picked up before Christmas.
She got herself into hot water on her views on Pitcairn Island "culture" (very related to your post) -
[ + ] Rob3122
[ - ] Rob3122 4 points 1 monthMar 27, 2025 20:47:38 ago (+4/-0)
[ + ] Sector2
[ - ] Sector2 [op] 1 point 1 monthMar 27, 2025 21:28:19 ago (+1/-0)
Friday at 2:35 PM Replies: 179
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BY ANDREW PAUL
POSTED 7 HOURS AGO
“The sun never sets on the British empire.” Variations on the phrase have been used for more than 200 years to describe the scope and power of the nation and its occupied territories. But from a logistical standpoint, Britain gave up the centuries-long imperial distinction last October, when it reached an agreement to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. It was a long time coming for the Chagossians, many of whom have worked for decades to regain control of the island. A joint statement issued between both countries in October vowed the deal helped to “address wrongs of the past and demonstrate the commitment of both parties to support the welfare of Chagossians.”
Technically speaking, however, sunlight continued to shine on at least one portion of British-occupied land for about another six months. The primary holdout? A section of the British Antarctic Territory, including the Pitcairn Islands that experiences perpetual sunlight six months out of the year.
But thanks to cosmic geometry, a major chapter in world history has just now come to a close. As first highlighted last year on Reddit, the spring equinox on March 20 marked the sun’s passage over the celestial equator, kicking off half a year of darkness around the South Pole. And given last year’s deal with Mauritius, this means Thursday night at 10:50 PM EST (2:50 AM on March 21 in London), the sun finally, literally set on the British empire.
It didn’t stay dark for Britain too long, however. About an hour after dusky conditions on the Pitcairn Islands, light began to peek over the horizon roughly 10,000 miles away in Akrotiri and Dhekelia, two non-contiguous British territories located on the island of Cyprus. Meanwhile, Britain is still maintaining a presence at a military base on the Chagos Archipelago’s Diego Garcia island as part of the 2024 agreement.
Britain isn’t the first or last culture with enough global territory to qualify for the “sun never sets” moniker. Similar, solar-based expansionist sentiments date as far back as the Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Persian, and Roman empires. The phrase “the empire on which the sun never sets” was first used in reference to the Spanish empire under the 16th century Hapsburg reign of King Charles I, also known as Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. Beginning in the 20th century, similar titles were frequently used to describe the United States. If nothing else, empires may rise and fall, but the sun will outlast them all—at least for about another 5 billion years.
https://www.popsci.com/science/sun-sets-on-british-empire/
[ + ] dulcima
[ - ] dulcima 1 point 1 monthMar 28, 2025 23:10:28 ago (+1/-0)
Tourist can visit the Pitcairns but you can only get there by boat.
Being so remote, isolated and inbred, it's not surprising the place is fucked up.
[ + ] Sector2
[ - ] Sector2 [op] 0 points 1 monthMar 29, 2025 02:30:02 ago (+0/-0)
By the machinations of fate and the vagaries of the 18th-century English judicial system, he is consigned as a convict to the famous "First Fleet," which set sail, bearing, as an experiment in penology, 582 male and 193 female felons sentenced to transportation, in May of 1787 for the continent that Captain Cook had discovered only a few years earlier. The word "epic" is overused, but no other word can do justice to one of the most grueling and significant voyages in human history or to the courage of the convicts whose sufferings were not ended but had only just begun when they set foot on Australian soil at Botany Bay on January 19th, 1788.
Of those convicts, Richard Morgan stood out, not only for his strength and his calm determination to let no man bully him, but also for his intelligence, his fair-mindedness, his common sense, and his willingness to help others. To these qualities must be added a certain innate dignity that hinted, even in the most terrible conditions, at a life marked by tragedies that would have broken most men.
In Richard Morgan, Colleen McCullough has created one of her most compelling characters. We see through Morgan's eyes the two worlds in which the story takes place: that of 18th-century Bristol, where Morgan was born and expected to live out his life, and that of a convicted felon sent to settle a hostile new world.
When the book begins, Richard Morgan is a contented man -- happily married, with a child he adores. Then, piece by piece, his idyll crumbles until he finds himself led into an ambiguous relationship with a beautiful young woman, whose dissolute protector seeks vengeance on Morgan to protect his own skin. He endures the agonies of bereavement and financial loss, incarceration in prison and aboard the notorious "hulks," then the horrors of the journeys to Botany Bay and Norfolk Island, where he finds against all odds a new love and a new life.
Richard Morgan's story is true, but in making Morgan the central figure of her novel, Colleen McCullough has created a hero whom no reader will ever forget; she has written not only a great adventure and a powerful love story, but also a book that combines the elements of Tom Jones and Mutiny on the Bounty. Morgan's Run is great fiction, full of drama, passion, history, love, and hatred, full-blooded and totally engrossing, a stunning work that is at once rich entertainment -- and a revelation.
Sounds epic. What do you think of it so far?
[ + ] dulcima
[ - ] dulcima 1 point 1 monthMar 29, 2025 20:08:43 ago (+1/-0)
I don't think they teach kids about the privations and brutality convicts faced (even the marines were treated harshly). Even when I was at school the main focus was on Aboriginals rather than the hardships convicts and early settlers faced.
McCullough's series of Roman novels has good reviews - I think I've got her Caesar one in the bundle of second hand books I picked up before Christmas.
She got herself into hot water on her views on Pitcairn Island "culture" (very related to your post) -
https://archive.md/8Daq1
https://www.smh.com.au/world/pitcairn-men-were-following-custom-mccullough-20041116-gdk4fe.html
[ + ] i_scream_trucks
[ - ] i_scream_trucks 1 point 1 monthMar 28, 2025 08:54:57 ago (+1/-0)*
population in 2004 - 47. and yet 7 dudes including the mayor manage to get hooked on 55 child sex offences...
two most popular historical pasttimes are murder and child rape
mayors wife then claims generational sluttiness from pitcairn girls and the men dindu nuffin