Investors failed to study the geography

From the Bangkok Post: Investors failed to study the geography

Re: ''Foreign companies show restraint as losses mount'' (BP, Business, Oct 24).

A glance at a physical map of Thailand should have given sufficient warning before the development of modern Bangkok.

The capital and its greater urban sprawl is built on silt that has been washed down into the valley that stretches for 200 miles to the north. This valley is nature's main drain into which flows all the surface water from the higher land to its north, west and east: hence the build-up of silt. It has done this for millennia and the two main rivers carrying the water to the sea, the Chao Phraya and the Tha Chin rivers are slow moving as can be seen by their shape. Therefore their capacity is low and before development of roads, factories and housing, additional auxilliary channels should have been formed.

Marc Spiegel of the JFCCT mentions taking ''proactive measures''. It is too late for pro-active measures, the disaster has happened. Any measures now taken will be reactive, following the avoidable, appalling suffering of thousands of innocent people.

There is a great deal more to sound investment than finance and the ''bottom line''. Prime consideration must be given to social well-being, location and dependable infrastructure such as drainage, water and energy. Chasing the easy, quick buck is not sound investment; consider the ''wisdom'' of Wall Street over the past decade.

This current flooding disaster is no more the doing of nature than was the Fukushima disaster. Building a nuclear plant close to a sub-marine fault line at sea level was the cause of the disaster. Bangkok is a large block in a natural drain and it is sinking slowly under its own weight. It could face submersion both from the sea in the south and fresh water from the north due to its geographical position. But, as with the fresh water flooding, if consideration is not forthcoming, in the future the current flooding will be seen historically as a picnic.

J C WILCOX

Cultural conquest of Indian Ocean

From the Oman Observer: Cultural conquest of Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean contains within its rim the greatest diversity of race, religion and living language in today’s world as well as half of the civilisations which are existed according to Huntington’s thesis. The countries that fringe its shorelines together wield considerable, strategic weight in the global economy and this influence is expected to assume leading status in the 21st century.

Geographically, the Indian Ocean divides the continents of Africa and Asia as far as Australasia, and although the account of a 3rd century merchant, Al-Tawaf Hazel Al-Bahr Al-Eritri (A Tour of the Eritrean Sea), describes the Indian Ocean as an African sea, we understand that even at that time it was believed to be an internal body of water, albeit one that linked the coasts of Oman, Yemen and the Red Sea with the east coast of Africa. As such it was an African/ Asian sea.

A more detailed geographical knowledge of the Indian Ocean was established in the 8th century AD as awareness grew of the extent of its reach, bounding in parallel the Silk Road, or long-distance overland trade route from Far Eastern Asia (Turkestan and China) to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. It was originally thought that the Silk Road served for the transporting of merchandise across countries that did not benefit from sea or coastline, or from long navigable rivers. Now, however, we know that this land route was used for the carriage of soft commodities, while the sea and ocean routes were reserved for the shipment of hard commodities or substantial quantities of goods and raw materials.

If it is the case that the Silk Road spread beyond local and domestic traffic boundaries from ancient times, as a consequence of peaceful accord and the amicable conduct of goods trading activity, the Indian Ocean effectively broke through local and internal (conceptual) boundaries from the 9th century AD, when Muslims succeeded in navigating their merchant fleets between Basra, Sohar and Seraf in the Arabian Gulf to the coasts of India and the China Sea via the Strait of Malacca.

The ocean continued to instil fear because of its ferocious storms and cyclones, as recounted in the stories of Sinbad, in Aja’ ib Al-Hind (The Wonders of India), and the voyage of Sulaiman the Merchant. As the shipbuilding industry advanced and knowledge of the ocean’s islands expanded, these could be sought out for refuge or as a temporary anchorage where merchants could engage in the exchange of goods until the storms passed or the trade winds returned. Or they could await the arrival of Indian and Chinese merchant ships to the islands for an exchange of contact and goods.

From the 10th century AD onwards, the ocean was a medium of peace, commerce and internal exchange for small merchant vessels plying the ports on both sides, as well as large merchant ships making the long crossing between Oman, Basra, the Sea of Oman and the Arabian Sea and the ports of India and China. In this way, the Indian Ocean had come to encompass, geographically, a vast continuum that depended on three principal advances: firstly, expansion in the knowledge of marine weather, of cyclones and astronomy; secondly, progressive innovations in the shipbuilding industry; and thirdly the success of Muslims in prevailing over communities and countries throughout the ocean and over its eastern, western and southern shores.

History:
Ibn Habib in his work kitab al-Muhabar mentioned that the Chinese and Indian ships reached Oman during 4th century AD Arabia and their main port was Diba in the Northern Oman; moreover he adds that these ships paid taxation to the Julandanian kings of Oman. This is the only statement in Arabic literature shows the fact of Arab-Indian-Chinese Maritimes trade pre-Islamic period. From the 8th century AD onwards, the ports of Sohar, Basra, Seraf and Aden were known as the ‘Indian’ ports.

The Indian epithet was not an indicator that some Indian state had attained control over these regions, but rather reflected the presence of large colonies of sailors from Indian territories and because of the quantities of Indian merchandise available there. History also tells us that maritime trade conducted by Muslims remained in private hands, continuing to attract the investment of leading merchants and encountering no state intervention beyond the collection of taxes and tolls in major ports.

Again, it was not the state that ensured the protection of sea commerce and the merchants who conducted it, but rather the presence of Muslim communities after the 8th century on the African and Asian shores of the Indian Ocean and the adjacent lands, including much of the territory along the Silk Road. And so, historically, trade remained private and merchant fleets also remained in private hands; civilian fleets maintained and overseen by the traders themselves.

As such, it was the traders who funded and invested in the development of the shipbuilding industry and in the advancement of marine knowledge, both in terms of technical innovation and the exploration of ocean waters and islands.

Because capital is risk averse, as we know, it followed that merchants, as concerned as they were about protection on the high seas, were just as keen to maintain dominance over the ports through the services of local authorities who held sway by controlling communication and co-ordination, and through a ‘generation’ of supportive authorities, so to speak.

We also know, historically, that again and again crises broke out between Omani traders and Buiyds when they were controlling Sohar, which in one case ignited a rebellion in Oman led by Rashid bin Hafs to defeat the Buiyds, or again between the Makarama traders and the new Mamluk authorities following the occupation of Aden. These latter were looking to monopolise trade in certain commodities or to raise unreasonably exhorbitant excise duties and tolls on goods. It is a fact that the private and peaceful nature of trade in the Islamic era was not confined to the Indian Ocean but also included the Mediterranean Sea.

The situation in the Mediterranean differed from that of the Indian Ocean, for in the latter Muslims were importers and exporters, while in the Mediterranean they were exporters only, with the merchants of Italian cities being importers. The Italian cities merchants, who also received delivery of Indian goods from the ports of the Levant and Egypt, were not, indeed, in communication with Islamic authorities beyond the payment of taxes and tolls. All other matters were dealt with on their behalf by Muslim traders, including issues related to security and disputes, which were conducted by proxy all the way to arbitration.

The Italians subsequently established agencies and neighbourhoods in coastal cities for the storage of merchandise following its purchase and prior to shipment. In this way they progressed their interaction with Muslim authorities, without the consequences ever leading to war, because Muslim trade syndicates remained dominant and because the concept of war fleets or warships was not yet known or familiar.

Excepted were certain port-based security vessels, some of which Muslims and Europeans occasionally leased on a temporary basis during certain seasons and in certain ports, especially during times of political upheaval and periods when security was threatened, such as when incidents of piracy were prevalent in the northern Indian Ocean and along the coast of Oman. It was times such as these that forced Imam Ghassan bin Abdullah (reign 808-822) to establish a naval garrison to deal with piracy.

Similar times were recorded during the Crusades and some periods of political unrest in the port cities of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Arabian Sea.
Even when Islamic shores on the eastern extremities of the Indian Ocean were visited in the 15th century by the Chinese war fleet under Admiral Cheng Ho, this was with the knowledge of the authorities and the fleet was loaded down with merchandise and gifts. No tension of a military nature occurred in association with the visit and we do not know, even today, what the real objective of this visit was because it was not repeated.

Nevertheless, we do know that historically the concept of war never tarnished the Indian Ocean or the maritime trade it facilitated until after the arrival of the Portuguese in the early years of the 16th century AD. After the successful rounding of the Cape of Good Hope, fleets of Portuguese warships appeared, escorting Portuguese, Spanish and Italian merchant vessels, and proceeded to confiscate non-European trading vessels. They went further, constructing coastal way stations protected by naval garrisons, even in ports south and east of the Arabian Peninsula and on the sea route to the Strait of Malacca and India.

Strategy represents a third landmark. From the 8th century AD, the Indian Ocean, like the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding local seas, became a zone of strategic importance for the Islamic world. However, there were differences between the two maritime zones, or between the Mediterranean and the ocean.

In the ocean, Muslim dominance rested on the emergence of Islamic urban communities in coastal areas and ports, or the prevalence of peaceful or allied communities throughout the region, and this lasted up to the 16th century. In the Mediterranean, on the other hand, Muslims found they were obliged to avail themselves of military fleets to ward off hostile attacks from Western Europe on the eastern and southern Mediterranean coasts.

There the islands were in a constant state of rebellion or in threatening mode, even after the capture by the Muslims of Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain).
It is known that Muslims continued to collaborate with Italian merchants in order to protect seagoing commerce from hostilities, but the Italians could not remain neutral during the Crusader wars and subsequently throughout the European-Ottoman standoff. They leased their vessels for the transport of soldiers from Western Europe or volunteered warship carriers in the hope of earning trade concessions in the wake of victory by the invaders.

So the Europeans, from the days of Byzantine control up to the 7th century and the Crusader wars, then beyond to the Ottoman era, never permitted Muslims to establish dominance in the Mediterranean. Neither did the code of peace and collaboration ever come to prevail in the Mediterranean Sea itself, or in its connected waterways or ports, if we exclude the Italian merchants who persevered in their efforts to maintain a climate of co-operation and peace with the southern Mediterranean up to the beginning of the 18th century.

From the foregoing we can see that in terms of strategic control, we have absolute dominance by Muslims in the Indian Ocean up to the 16th century, and some relative prevalence of Muslims in the Mediterranean up to the 18th century. In the Indian Ocean, the collapse of Islamic influence did not occur all at once, with the defeats suffered by the Mamluks and Ottomans in their confrontations with the Portuguese, and this was due to the presence of Islamic communities and territories on the eastern, western and southern, shores of the ocean.

As the influence of the more powerful Islamic countries waned, resistance grew among the small states and local communities and persisted over the following two centuries, until the new era of imperialism arrived on the two ancient continents and in the New World and resistance was forced underground.

On the high seas this defiance was limited to acts of what would have been deemed piracy, or challenges to the merchant trading cartels established by the European powers as they extended their reach across oceans and seas, in war and in trade. The established pattern of seaborne commerce, once strictly a process of simple mutual exchange in which the state had little or no input, was being transformed.

European trade was a strategic activity, one that had, since the 16th century, pursued an orientation in which the owners of seaborne goods aligned themselves with the politics of the international capitalist world, especially with those of Dutch and British establishments, culminating in the foundation of the Dutch and British East India companies. In every case, the state was either a partner or a patron, and wielded strategic control in the expansion of the European presence throughout the world.

Trade, Culture and Civilisation:
While it is true that power is not completely absent in the act of exchange, it is not the dominant element of trade and it did not become so before the eras of colonialism and imperialism, both spearheaded, as we know, by Europeans. Nor was this a feature of the Indian Ocean alone; rather it was repeated in every part of the world.

Even Ibn Khaldun, when he wrote of power in the context of trade, did not perceive it as an act of war but rather of artfulness, a matter of intellectual skill where the merchant’s superior hand in the exchange relied for its success on his knowledge of the merchandise and the marketplace. The culture of exchange in the Indian Ocean preserved a special character, which continued to prevail there even after the emergence of Portuguese, Dutch, French and British competition.

It was a culture established in the Indian Ocean region by Omanis and other traders and seamen of the southern Arabian Peninsula. Islam itself rode the cresting wave of sea commerce, and Muslim communities made inroads into the furthest reaches of India and China from trading outposts and way stations. Certainly upon to the beginning of 20th century, the two third of the total Arabian population settled along the Indian Ocean costal between the straits of Humuz and Bab -Almindab.

In this sense, that is to say with the establishment of, in particular, a culture of exchange in the Indian Ocean, we may speak of a cultural imprint that prevailed in the territories influential among Muslim communities who inhabit the ports or coastal areas of Asia and Africa that overlook the Indian Ocean.

From this was derived, in the 20th century, the culture of a capitalist market, to be replaced today by the networking culture of globalism. There were no Islamic military incursions into any of the territories bordering the Ocean. No Muslim armies arrived to impose religious dogma or political control in any territory between the Arabian Sea and India and China.

Instead, many small colonies spread along the shores of the ocean later developed into communities that were ethnically and religiously pure. There is no doubt that this was not solely due to the features of commercial exchange, interlocked as it was with the spread of Islam, but to the similar character of the inhabitants of these areas in Africa and Asia to that of Muslim traders who visited them. The difference between the communities and colonies established by Muslim traders in coastal Africa lies in their origin as small, rural, fishing and barter communities, while Asian urban areas were relatively large.

Things are greatly changed today, with capitalism struggling and globalisation more or less shelved, but also because a major power has grown along the ocean seaboard, and because Asian religions, as well as Islam, are alive and clear and thriving. And so we watch with interest as the Indian Ocean becomes, once again, into a significant arena for exchange and trade in the world today, with the principal commodity of exchange being the trade off between its diverse cultural milieux, as well as the expansion of a simple human vision of the 3rd century Sea of Eritrea into the global ocean of peace and cultural exchange that is the Indian Ocean today.

In defence of geography and our space for critical thinking.

From The Mark: In defence of geography and our space for critical thinking.
The Feminist Geography Collective writes in response to Margaret Wente’s column,

“They hijacked the humanities, then my canoe,” which appeared in The Globe on Oct. 22.

Dear Peggy,

This weekend, you took a cheap shot at our colleagues and our own research pursuits.

In Saturday’s column, you attacked Andrew Baldwin, Laura Cameron, and Audrey Kobayashi’s book, Rethinking The Great White North: Race, Nature and Historical Geographies of Whiteness in Canada.

We invite you to read the entire book – there are 18 other contributing authors from a variety of social science and humanities disciplines – as we believe you would see how you’ve taken those scarce few lines about you out of context.

We are a group of approximately 70 academics (from across disciplines) who read your column with brittle bemusement. We draw from geographical perspectives in our teaching and research, and we think you might benefit from a Geography 101 primer.

Your characterization of geography left us puzzled because geography is far from irrelevant. In fact, geography achieved even greater widespread popularity in the early 1990s – disciplines like sociology, anthropology, and English began to borrow from geography, explaining that it offered the tools and knowledge needed to make sense of our ever-changing world, including new migration patterns and globalization.

This is especially the case in Canada, where geographically inspired analyses have led the way in making contributions to a variety of policy spheres – health, social, and environmental among them. Geography departments in Canadian university programs are growing in popularity with both undergraduate and graduate students.

But policy-relevant research is only one part of geographic pursuit.

Geographical thought is also about turning the world upside down, probing taken-for-granted policies and ideas in search of other ways of thinking. It's about giving histories to the present, and putting things into context. It's about dreaming and imagination, too – for a future different than the past, one where reconciling with our colonial, settler history means true economic and social justice.

Universities provide spaces for critical thinking. Those critical-thinking skills help students challenge false assumptions and both open and hidden prejudices. They help those students contribute to effective planning and policy practices. The role of a liberal arts education where geographical analyses are front and centre is to promote critical thought. In geography classrooms across the country, we encourage students to re-examine what they think they know about place, the region, and the nation.

Feminist geography allows us to consider the perspectives of those who are marginalized, who almost always have a better understanding of the unconscious underpinnings of society and culture than do the majority or the elite. Many of us have examined how dichotomous ways of thinking about spatiality are misplaced. We challenge binaries like home and work. We ask what a truly fair city would look like – one sensitive to differences in gender, class, status, race, sexual orientation, and ability – and what it might take to create such a city.

We invite you into our geography classrooms to learn more about what we really do. Indeed, journalists are no strangers to our lecture halls. We often ask them to come in to help us understand our world. Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times will be a keynote speaker at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers in February, for example.

If you take us up on this, you will learn that geography is not just about rocks and trees and National Geographic. In our classes, we talk about the rights and responsibilities of immigrants to Canada, the cyclist-driving divide, and the ways that Canada’s three largest cities are bifurcated by income and race, among other things.

And ultimately, that’s what Rethinking The Great White North aims to do. The authors believe that understanding life in Canada today, and making decisions about its future, demands a clear understanding of the past. Nature has a history and it is of pressing concern when, for example, indigenous landscapes are viewed as “pristine” wilderness. The “Great White North” – as a metaphor, myth, economic frontier, and comedy – has long endured in collective imagination. The book aims to challenge and rethink its place in Canadian self-understanding. Surely that’s important for all Canadians?

So come on in and visit us, Peggy.

You might see that the students we teach think of themselves in ways that are vastly different than you imagine.

We promise to make sure you don’t feel like a black fly blasted with a bazooka. Do your j-stroke and paddle upstream to us. We understand you spent time during your Masters in English at the University of Toronto drinking tea with Robertson Davies. We’ll have a cuppa waiting for you.

One lump or two?

Have Map Will Travel: Avenza's PDF Maps App Launches on iOS Appealing to Travel Enthusiasts, Students and Sport Adventurers

From MarketWatch: Have Map Will Travel: Avenza's PDF Maps App Launches on iOS Appealing to Travel Enthusiasts, Students and Sport Adventurers

TORONTO, Oct 25, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher(R) cartographic software for Adobe(R) Illustrator(R) and Geographic Imager(R) geospatial tools for Adobe Photoshop(R), announced the launch of the PDF Maps app, the first and only geospatial PDF reader on Apple iOS devices including the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that introduces a modern approach to discovering the world for a new generation of digital trailblazers, explorers and map users in general.

Already winning accolades from the International Map Trade Association (IMTA) for the "Best Use of New Technology and New Media," Avenza's PDF Maps features a marketplace for publishers to feature specific geographical maps detailed to a certain locale while offering consumers a library of maps that are global, interactive and expanding on a daily basis. PDF Maps take advantage of geospatial technology that allows travelers to view and measure real world locations and attributes. Paired together with mobile devices that utilize GPS, such as an iPhone, the PDF Maps app provides constant access to geographic locations and even points of interest without the risk of losing reception due to cell tower proximity -- making it the ultimate traveling accessory for those that travel abroad, sailing enthusiasts, cross-country backpacking or any activity that requires a little direction or extends to any area where internet bandwidth is not available.

"Smartphones have made an impact on how the world communicates and processes information -- they are able to provide immediate, tangible data that can be accessed at any time and almost any place. By combining mapping technology with PDF functionality, we are able to provide users with an interactive experience where you can see where you are, input notes digitally and offer a new way of exploring," said Ted Florence, President of Avenza Systems Inc. "Just as easily as people can buy books, music and videos from iTunes, they can now easily buy maps, which is perfect for planning trips or accessing data from thousands of maps available to the public around the globe."

Unlike other map apps that provide one view of a location using GPS coordinates as many maps do, PDF Maps expands a traveler's choices, allowing them to access detailed geography or points of interest created by specific map publishers for use on land and sea. Digital maps are also green eliminating the need for both paper and ink used in paper maps that may need to be updated annually. PDF Maps allows consumers to access information while at a destination, providing travelers an opportunity to make the most of their time experiencing their environment rather than searching for cell reception, a local store or passerby for directions.

Currently, Avenza's vast PDF Maps app library covering maps for domestic and international travel includes more than 55,000 USGS (United States Geological Survey) topographic maps organized by state and area. All maps available through the map store offer the following capabilities:



-- Access and load maps through iTunes File Sharing, Wi-Fi or cellular
network to read maps anytime
-- Access and interact with saved maps without the need for a live
network connection (offline)
-- View your location on the PDF map using the built-in GPS device or via
Wi-Fi triangulation
-- Find coordinates of any location in the map, including the ability to
type in a coordinate to search
-- Display coordinates as Lat/Long (WGS84), Lat/Long (Map Default),
Northing/Easting, or Military Grid Reference System (MGRS/United
States National Grid (USNG))
-- Support for GeoTIFF files to create tiles similar to how a geospatial
PDF is tiled
-- Map rendering in higher resolution
-- Overlay Google search results
-- Add waypoints and collect/record information about locations,
including photos
-- Measure distances and areas
-- Open current map extents in the Maps app
-- Quickly view, zoom and pan maps using gestures (pinch, drag and flick,
double tap)
-- Change pin colors, position and label names

PDF Maps is available now on the iTunes App Store free of charge. For more information about PDF Maps, visit the Avenza website at www.avenza.com/pdf-maps . Pricing of each map is set by the publisher and free maps remain free to users through the PDF Maps app in-app store.

More about Avenza Systems Inc. Avenza Systems Inc. is an award-winning, privately held corporation that provides cartographers and GIS professionals with powerful software tools for making better maps. In addition to software offerings for Mac and Windows users, Avenza offers value-added data sets, product training and consulting services. For more information visit the Avenza website at www.avenza.com .

Spend the night in the world’s deepest underground hotel in Sweden

From YahooNews: Spend the night in the world’s deepest underground hotel in Sweden
In the next few years, extreme travelers could spend the night floating around in a space hotel. For now, what the Earth can offer will have to suffice. Thankfully, some options have the potential to satiate even the most adventurous — take for example the deepest underground hotel suite in the world. Located in the old, 15th century Sala Silvermine in Sweden, the suite lies 509 ft. deep under the earth's surface.

The tunnels of Sala's mine were used to excavate for silver until 1908. Now, it houses a museum, a theater, two ornate dining rooms, and a hotel suite where two people can spend the night. Guests are first toured around the underground facilities so they know their way around, but ultimately left alone overnight — attendants stay on ground level. If you're hit by the call of nature in the middle of the night, you'd have to go up to 165 ft. to access the nearest toilet; no bathroom exists within the mine. Phones, of course, do not work that deep underground.

Clearly, if you're claustrophobic, agoraphobic, or if you really just can't stand gloomy places, this hotel is not for you. But if you fancy a stay underground for whatever purpose you might have, you can spend a night in Sweden's Sala Silvermine suite for $580

Civil War Geography: Fort Zachary Taylor, Key West, Florida

The location of Fort Zachary Taylor on Key West. (the red circle.)


Fort Taylor, Key West, today.

A couple of days ago I shared a map of the harbor in South Carolina where the various forts were located - in particular Fort Sumter, where the shots that started the Civil War were fired on 12 April 1861.

I should have started even earlier than that. As soon as President Lncoln was elected, certain states started talk of seceeding, and when they eventually did secede, immediately took over various items of Federal propery, in particular forts.

Expecting this eventuality, on November 15, 1860, US Navy Lieutenant T. A. Craven "informed Washington that due to the 'deplorable condition of affairs in the Southern States' he was proceeding to take moves to guard Fort Taylor at Key West and Fort Jefferson on Dry Tortugas (both Florida) from possible seizure.

(Fort Taylor and the Key West area will later become a vital coaling station for the Union Navy and blockading squadron.)

From Wikipedia:
The Fort Zachary Taylor State Historic Site, better known simply as Fort Taylor, (or Fort Zach to locals), is a Florida State Park and National Historic Landmark centered on a Civil War-era fort located near the southern tip of Key West, Florida.

History of Fort Zachary Taylor
Construction of the fort began in 1845 as part of a mid-19th century plan to defend the southeast coast through a series of forts. The fort was named for United States President Zachary Taylor in 1850, a few months after President Taylor's sudden death in office. Yellow fever epidemics and material shortages slowed construction of the fort, which continued throughout the 1850s. At the outset of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, Union Captain John Milton Brannan seized control of the fort, preventing it from falling into Confederate hands and using it as an outpost to threaten blockade runners. Originally, the fort was surrounded by water on all sides, with a walkway linking it to the mainland. The fort was completed in 1866, although the upper level of one side was destroyed in 1889 to make way for more modern weapons, with the older cannons being buried within the new outer wall to save on materials. The fort was heavily used again during the 1898 Spanish-American War.

1900-present
In 1947, the fort, no longer of use to the Army, was turned over to the U.S. Navy for maintenance. In 1968 volunteers led by Howard S. England excavated Civil War guns and ammunition buried in long-abandoned parts of the fort, which was soon discovered to house the nation's largest collection of Civil War cannons. Fort Taylor was therefore placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973. Due to the filling in of land around the fort, including the creation of an attractive stretch of beach, the park now occupies 87 acres (352,000 m²).

Truman Annex
The Fort's land that is closer to downtown Key West became part of the Truman Annex to Naval Station Key West, which is about three miles to the northwest. The Annex was originally called the "Fort Zachary Taylor Annex" and it included a submarine base.

President Harry S. Truman used it for his Winter White House for 175 days in 11 visits. The Secret Service had a private beach built on the land for the president's security, but he reportedly only visited it once, preferring the public beaches. The beach name is called "Truman Beach." The fort, along with its related support buildings, was later renamed for Truman.

The Annex was decommissioned in 1974 because the U.S. Navy had decommissioned nearly all of their diesel-electric submarines and contemporary nuclear powered submarines were too big for the existing port. Most of the then-former Naval Station became an annex (Truman Annex) to the remaining Naval Air Station Key West and served as the landing point for many during the 1980 Mariel boatlift of Cuban refugees.

Those buildings in the Annex and associated real estate not retained by the Navy as part of NAS Key West were sold to private developers. There's a museum for the Truman White House and the Navy continues to own and maintain the piers and that portion of the Naval Station property to the south of Fort Taylor, primarily in support of Joint Interagency Task Force - East and the Naval Security Group Activity.

Current uses
In addition to the role of the fort and its adjacent beach as tourist attractions, Fort Taylor is also the location of a number of annual events, including week-long Civil War reenactments. On the weekend preceding Halloween, it is transformed into a haunted fort, much like a haunted house but on a grand scale and with a distinctive Civil War theme.

Civil War Geography: Fort Sumter, South Carolina

The first shots of the Civil War were fired on 12 April 1861, from Confederate batteries on Fort Johnson.

This ended a stand-off that had been in place since 26 December 1860 when US Army Major Robert Anderson had, upon learning that South Carolina had seceded from the Union, evacuated his men from nearby, indefensible Fort Moultrie, to Fort Sumter.

Fort Sumter National Monument
Fort Sumter National Monument encompasses three sites in Charleston: the original Fort Sumter, the Fort Sumter Visitor Education Center, and the Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island. Access to Fort Sumter itself is by a 30 minute ferry ride from the Fort Sumter Visitor Education Center or Patriot's Point.

The Visitor Education Center's museum features exhibits about the disagreements between the North and South that led to the incidents at Fort Sumter. The museum at Fort Sumter focuses on the activities at the fort, including its construction and role during the Civil War.

April 12, 2011 marked the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War. There was a commemoration of the events by thousands of Civil War re-enactors with encampments in the area. A United States stamp of Fort Sumter, and first day cover, was issued that day.

________________

Bibliography

The Civil War Day By Day: An Almanac 1861-1865. E.B. Long with Barbara Long, De Capo, 1971