"day Nelson openly stated that he had ""fought contrary to orders"". Sir Hyde Parker was recalled in disgrace and Nelson appointed Commander-in-Chief of the fleet following the battle. The Oxford English Dictionary records usage of the phrase as early as 1698. Turning a blind eye Turning a blind eye is an idiom describing the ignoring of undesirable information. The phrase ""to turn a blind eye"" is attributed to an incident in the life of Admiral Horatio Nelson. Nelson was blinded in one eye early in his Royal Navy career. During the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 the cautious Admiral Sir"
"examination. He served as the ""London""s acting-signal lieutenant during the battle, sending Parker's famous signal for Nelson to withdraw. Nelson, directing action aboard , was informed of the signal by the signal lieutenant, Frederick Langford, but angrily responded: 'I told you to look out on the Danish commodore and let me know when he surrendered. Keep your eyes fixed on him.' He then turned to his flag captain, Thomas Foley, and said 'You know, Foley, I have only one eye. I have a right to be blind sometimes.' He raised the telescope to his blind eye, and said 'I really"
"the Battle of Copenhagen when Nelson transferred his flag from the 98-gun as ""Elephant""s shallower draught made her more suitable for the shallow waters around Copenhagen. It was therefore on the deck of ""Elephant"" that the legend of Nelson putting the telescope to his blind eye arose. The postcard of the monument to George Parsons in St Leonard's, Bursledon dates from around 1930 and is believed to have been annotated by his great-great-grandson John Denham Parsons who was a regular visitor to the village and local historian before the II World War. He gives ""Elephant""s dimensions as Gun Deck 168"
"the Danish commodore and let me know when he surrendered. Keep your eyes fixed on him."" He then turned to his flag captain, Thomas Foley, and said ""You know, Foley, I have only one eye. I have a right to be blind sometimes."" He raised the telescope to his blind eye, and said ""I really do not see the signal."" The battle lasted three hours, leaving both Danish and British fleets heavily damaged. At length Nelson dispatched a letter to the Danish commander, Crown Prince Frederick, calling for a truce, which the Prince accepted. Parker approved of Nelson's actions in"
"not see the signal""” (although this is generally accepted to be a myth). Nelson pressed on with the action and ultimately compelled the Danish forces to capitulate. Parker’s hesitation to advance up the Baltic Sea after his victory was later severely criticised. Soon afterwards he was recalled and Nelson succeeded him. He died on 16 March 1807. In Parker's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography his biographer Clive Wilkinson writes that until the Copenhagen affair he had ""a good professional reputation"" but after Copenhagen he was ""considered irresolute and dilatory. In Wilson's opinion ""As an officer, Parker was"
"Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens ( ; ; ; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch physicist, mathematician, astronomer and inventor, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientists of all time and a major figure in the scientific revolution. In physics, Huygens made groundbreaking contributions in optics and mechanics, while as an astronomer he is chiefly known for his studies of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan. As an inventor, he improved the design of the telescope with the invention of the Huygenian eyepiece. His most famous invention, however, was"
"fought at the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801, as the flagship of Rear Admiral Thomas Graves, with Captain Retallick commanding. The station in the line occupied in the battle was abreast of the Crown battery, which mounted thirty-six heavy guns, and was provided with a furnace for heating shot. Owing to the mishaps that kept , Russell, and Agamemnon from taking up their assigned stations, the Defiance became exposed to a severe cross fire, from which she suffered very severe damage. In furtherance of the designs of Lord Nelson, when Sir Hyde Parker made the signal to discontinue"
"Peter Tordenskjold Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold (28 October 1690 – 12 November 1720), commonly referred to as Tordenskjold (lit. ""Thunder Shield""), was a Norwegian nobleman and an eminent naval flag officer in the service of the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. He rose to the rank of Vice-Admiral for his services in the Great Northern War. Born in Trondheim, Peter Wessel travelled to Copenhagen in 1704, and was employed in the navy. He won a name for himself through audacity and courage, and was ennobled as ""Peter Tordenskiold"" by King Frederick IV in 1716. His greatest exploit came later that year, as"
"which can only be understood in relation to broader political and social developments. Particular emphasis is laid on the significance of the struggles between popes and emperors, and on Roman law. The book’s greatest strength is its extraordinary breadth of vision."" After an operation on his heart, Olaf Pedersen died December 3, 1997. Olaf Pedersen Olaf Pedersen (1920–1997) was a ""leading authority on astronomy in classical antiquity and the Latin middle ages"" Olaf Pedersen was born April 8, 1920 in Egtved, Jutland, Denmark. At the University of Copenhagen he studied in Niels Bohr’s institute, graduating in 1943 when the country"
"Battle of Gothenburg The Battle of Gothenburg was a Danish attempt to destroy the Swedish squadron in Gothenburg, which was led by Olof Strömstierna. The Danes were led by the famous Peter Tordenskjold. The Swedish land defence was led by Fredrik of Hessen, and it consisted of the land batteries Billingen and Rya Nabbe with 12 guns each, and the Älvsborg fortress, who had 400 soldiers with 90 guns. The Danish attack was intended as a surprise attack but failed, after the Swedes opened fire at them after they passed Älvsborg fortress. The bombardment was led as a cross-fire from"
"who could not see Nelson's flagship , followed Parker's signal. Riou withdrew his force, which was then attacking the ""Tre Kroner"" fortress, exposing himself to heavy fire that killed him. It was at this time that the battle swung decisively to the British, as their superior gunnery took effect. The guns of the dozen southernmost Danish ships had started to fall silent owing to the damage they had sustained, and the fighting moved northward. According to British eyewitness accounts, much of the Danish line had fallen silent by 2 pm. The cessation of firing left the way open for the"
"more aggressive Nelson's attention, he lifted his telescope up to his blind eye, saying, ""I have a right to be blind sometimes. I really do not see the signal,"" and most of his forces continued to press home the attack. The frigates supporting the line-of-battle ships did break off, in one case suffering severe losses in the retreat. There is a misconception that the order was to be obeyed at Nelson's discretion, but this is contradicted by the fact that it was a general order to all the attacking ships (some of whom did break off), and that later that"
"Peter Andreas Hansen Peter Andreas Hansen (born December 8, 1795, Tønder, Schleswig, Denmark – died March 28, 1874, Gotha, Thuringia, Germany) was a Danish German astronomer. The son of a goldsmith, Hansen learned the trade of a watchmaker at Flensburg, and exercised it at Berlin and Tønder, 1818–1820. He had, however, long been a student of science; and Dr Dircks, a physician practising at Tønder, prevailed with his father to send him in 1820 to Copenhagen, where he won the patronage of H.C. Schumacher and attracted the personal notice of King Frederick VI. The Danish survey was then in progress,"
"Jacob Metius Jacob (Jacobus; sometimes James) Metius (after 1571–1624/1631) was a Dutch instrument-maker and a specialist in grinding lenses. He was born and died in Alkmaar and was the brother of Adriaan Adriaanszoon (simply called Metius). He is one of three people associated with the invention of the telescope, the other two being Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Janssen. Not much of him is known besides his 1608 patent application for the invention. He died in Alkmaar between 1624 and 1631. Metius may have made many inventions but kept them secret. Before his death he destroyed them all to prevent anyone"
"the main exercise of up till his own death. Apart from his activities as director of Berlin Observatory, from 1705 he led at the same time the private observatory ofn and was from 1710 until at least 1712 also a teacher to the Cadet Corps. Johann Heinrich Hoffmann Johann Heinrich Hoffmann (1669 in /Thüringen; April 6, 1716 in Berlin) was a German astronomer. Hoffmann was a student of Erhard Weigel and, until his death in 1699, his (assistant). He accompanied him on his journey of 1696 - 1697 to Denmark and Sweden. From February 1701 Hoffmann was employed first as"
"is not, it will be an excuse for his retreat and no blame can be imputed to him.""Nelson ordered that the signal be acknowledged, but not repeated. He turned to his flag captain, Thomas Foley, and said ""You know, Foley, I only have one eye — I have the right to be blind sometimes,"" and then, holding his telescope to his blind eye, said ""I really do not see the signal!"" Rear Admiral Graves repeated the signal, but in a place invisible to most other ships while keeping Nelson's 'close action' signal at his masthead. Of Nelson's captains, only Riou,"
"Albert Borgard Albert Borgard (Danish: ""Albrecht Borgaard"" or ""Borregaard""; 10 November 1659 – 7 February 1751) was a Danish artillery and engineer officer. Albert Borgard was born in Holbæk, Jutland, on 10 November 1659 of unknown parents. He is generally referred to as Albert Borgard in English and Albrecht Borgaard or Borregaard in Danish. He joined the Danish army in 1675, during the war between Sweden and Denmark, and was made a gunner in 1676. He served throughout the war, and at its close, in 1679, held the rank of fireworker, and was ordered to make a survey of the"
"government's support. When Metius perceived that the States General was reluctant to review his claim, he prohibited anyone from seeing his telescope. The States General voted Jacob Metius a small award, although it ended up employing Lippershey to make binocular versions of the telescope. At his death, Metius’ tools were destroyed according to his wishes in order to prevent anyone from claiming the honor of inventing the telescope. There is a claim by Johannes Zachariassen, Zacharias Janssen's son, that Jacob Metius and Cornelis Drebbel bought a telescope from him and his father in 1620 and copied it, although this is"
"in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The crater Delambre on the Moon is named after him. Delambre was an atheist. Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre Jean Baptiste Joseph, chevalier Delambre (19 September 1749 – 19 August 1822) was a French mathematician and astronomer. He was also director of the Paris Observatory, and author of well-known books on the history of astronomy from ancient times to the 18th century. After a childhood fever, he suffered from very sensitive eyes, and believed that he would soon go blind. For fear of losing his ability to read, he devoured any book available and trained"
"Thomas Clausen (mathematician) Thomas Clausen (January 16, 1801, Snogbæk, Sottrup Municipality, Duchy of Schleswig (now Denmark) – May 23, 1885, Dorpat, Imperial Russia (now Estonia)) was a Danish mathematician and astronomer. Clausen learned mathematics at home. In 1820, he became a trainee at the Munich Optical Institute and in 1824, at the Altona Observatory after he showed Heinrich Christian Schumacher his paper on calculating longitude by the occultation of stars by the moon. He eventually returned to Munich, where he conceived and published his best known works on mathematics. In 1842 Clausen was hired by the staff of the Tartu"
"British bomb vessels to approach Copenhagen. In addition, the reinforcements of the ships from the shore batteries were causing the latter to become ineffective. ""Nyborg"" tried to leave the line with ""Aggershuus"" in tow, but both sank. The most northerly ship, the frigate ""Hjælperen"", successfully withdrew. The Danish commander, Commodore Olfert Fischer, moved from ""Dannebrog"" at 11:30 am, when it caught fire, to ""Holsteen"". When ""Indfødsretten"", immediately north of ""Holsteen"", struck its colours at about 2:30 pm, he moved on to the ""Tre Kroner"" fortress. There he engaged three of Parker's ships, which had lost their manoeuvrability after being badly"
"court astrologers included Tycho Brahe in the royal court of Denmark, Johannes Kepler to the Habsburgs, Galileo Galilei to the Medici, and Giordano Bruno who was burnt at the stake for heresy in Rome in 1600. The distinction between astrology and astronomy was not entirely clear. Advances in astronomy were often motivated by the desire to improve the accuracy of astrology. Ephemerides with complex astrological calculations, and almanacs interpreting celestial events for use in medicine and for choosing times to plant crops, were popular in Elizabethan England. In 1597, the English mathematician and physician Thomas Hood made a set of"
"commander ""Orlogskaptein"" (Lieutenant Commander) Ulstrup – the former commander of the mine layer ""Tyr"" – gave an oral order that ""Sæl"" was to avoid contact with the superior enemy force. Ulstrup felt that the poorly armed, slow and not very manoeuvrable ""Sæl"" would not stand a chance against the three fast and modern opponents. The fact that Ulstrup's order was given orally led to a fatal misunderstanding. By the time word reached ""Fenrik"" Gulbrandsen, he understood the order to mean that he was to attack and destroy the three E-boats. Believing to be obeying orders, Gulbrandsen sailed ""Sæl"" into the"
"the result of a lung injury sustained during the duel. Thomas' mother, Bergitha Christina Munster, was the daughter of Meta Anckarström, cousin to Jacob Johan Anckarström who had, in the year 1792, assassinated King Gustav III of Sweden. At the age of twelve, in 1836, Thomas was enlisted as a cadet in the Danish navy, serving on the gunship Bellona and traveling to many foreign ports including Brazil, Russia, England and Portugal. After serving for three years he was injured during a fireworks accident on board ship and temporarily blinded; this injury caused him to lose his cadetship. Upon regaining"
"the king, where Gyldenløve also regrets that a ""brave and talented"" officer should die in such a miserable way. Gyldenløve followed the battle from his ship ""Elephanten"" and wrote the letter at about 9 o'clock in the morning of October 5. Ivar Huitfeldt Iver Huitfeldt (5 December 1665 – 4 October 1710) was a Norwegian naval officer who was killed in action, when he commanded the ship ""Dannebroge"" during Great Northern War 1700–1721. Iver Huitfeldt was born in the Norwegian town of Halden. He lost his mother at the age of six and his father died six years later. Both"
"stepping down, being ill, and I soon took over the teaching, in the beginning with Bak as censor. A tough one, both to me and to the students."" Børge Bak was an active member of the Danish Resistance, working overtly as a volunteer firefighter in order to gather secret documents and material after organized bombings. Børge Bak Børge Bak (31 December 1912 – 22 February 1990), D.Phil., Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog 1st Class, was a Danish polymath, inventor, chemist and Professor of Molecular Spectroscopy at the University of Copenhagen, best known for his early contributions to the"
"to follow orders since they ""did not want to go back and let themselves be slaughtered like sheep"". Sjöblad had to surrender and was taken prisoner. ""Kalmar Kastell"" was attacked by four Danish ships and also struck its colors. The captain of the Swedish ship, Cornelis Thijssen, gave his artillery officer orders to shoot up the ship's hull, and the Danish boarding party had to quickly ground the ship at Falster, later only managing to salvage the guns and the rig. One after the other, the Swedish ships came under attack: ""Havsfrun"" and ""Ängeln Gabriel"" were both overtaken while the"
"technologically advanced versions have since been produced. The Bergedorf Schmidt was moved to Calar Alto Observatory in 1976. Bernhard Schmidt is also the protagonist of the biographic novel ""Vastutuulelaev: Bernhard Schmidti romaan"" (""Sailing Against the Wind: a Novel of Bernhard Schmidt"") by Estonian author Jaan Kross. Bernhard Schmidt Bernhard Woldemar Schmidt ( – 1 December 1935) was a German optician. In 1930 he invented the Schmidt telescope which corrected for the optical errors of spherical aberration, coma, and astigmatism, making possible for the first time the construction of very large, wide-angled reflective cameras of short exposure time for astronomical research."
"Tycho Brahe Tycho Brahe (; born Tyge Ottesen Brahe; 14 December 154624 October 1601) was a Danish nobleman, astronomer, and writer known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. He was born in the then Danish peninsula of Scania. Well known in his lifetime as an astronomer, astrologer and alchemist, he has been described as ""the first competent mind in modern astronomy to feel ardently the passion for exact empirical facts."" His observations were some five times more accurate than the best available observations at the time. An heir to several of Denmark's principal noble families, he received"
"observation met with rejection from influential sceptics. They denied the truth of his most startling reports, such as that there were mountains on the moon and satellites around Jupiter. In particular some prominent philosophers, most notoriously Cesare Cremonini, refused to look through the telescope, arguing in effect that the instrument might have introduced artefacts producing illusions of mountains or satellites invisible to the unencumbered eye. To neglect such possibilities amounted to underdetermination in which argument for optical artefacts could be urged as being of merit equal to arguments for observation of new celestial effects, whether the latter were more parsimonious"
"Lieut. Wolfgang Kaas, Commissar Gabriel Hetting and Doctor Mark Klausen. In acknowledgement of the kind treatment they had received, De Holck set up a commemorative marble tablet on 10 October 1797. During the battle of Copenhagen in 1801, ""Sarpen"" was under the command of Captain Lieutenant Carl Farbriuis de Tengnagel. Prior to the battle the Danes had sent her to The Skaw to serve as the eyes of the fleet. She served in Olfert Fischer's division in the Inner Run under Chamberlain Steen Bille and did not engage in any actual fighting. The British took possession of ""Sarpen"" under the"
"Joseph von Fraunhofer Joseph Ritter von Fraunhofer (; ; 6 March 1787 – 7 June 1826) was a Bavarian physicist and optical lens manufacturer. He made optical glass and achromatic telescope objective lenses, invented the spectroscope, and developed diffraction grating. In 1814, he discovered and studied the dark absorption lines in the spectrum of the sun now known as Fraunhofer lines. The German research organization Fraunhofer Society is named after him and is Europe's biggest Society for the Advancement of Applied Research. Joseph Fraunhofer was born in Straubing, in the Electorate of Bavaria, to Franz Xaver Fraunhofer and Maria Anna"
"Zacharias Janssen Zacharias Janssen (also Zacharias Jansen or Sacharias Jansen) (1585 – pre-1632) was a Dutch spectacle-maker from Middelburg associated with the invention of the first optical telescope. Janssen is sometimes also credited for inventing the first truly compound microscope. However, the origin of the microscope, just like the origin of the telescope, is a matter of debate. Zacharias Janssen was born in The Hague. Local records seem to indicate he was born in 1580 although a date of birth as early as 1580 or as late a 1588 are also given. His parents were Hans Martens (who may have"