At first the group's activities consisted of parades, publications of cryptic newspaper notices, and midnight meetings at graveyards. Evidence that the Klan had spread to Texas was first noted in March 1868. Several different Klan-like organizations with different relationships to each other coexisted in various parts of the South they included the Knights of the Red Hand, the Pale Faces, the White Brotherhood, the Constitutional Union Guards, and, in Texas, the Knights of the Rising Sun and the Knights of the White Camellia. The Klan of the Reconstruction era was not a single organization or even a loose confederation of local and state groups. By the late 1860s the Klan became one of the principal forms of opposition to Reconstruction, and members were pledged to support the supremacy of the White race, to oppose the amalgamation of the races, to resist the social and political encroachment of carpetbaggers, and to restore White control of the government. Initially the organization existed solely for amusement, but as it spread through the Southern states it became more and more associated with vigilantism and opposition to Republican rule. In its early years the Klan's regalia included a white mask with holes for the eyes, a high, conical, cardboard hat, and long flowing robes. Officers consisted of a "grand cyclops" or president, a "grand magi" (plural sic) or vice president, a "grand Turk" or marshal, and a "grand exchequer" ( sic) or treasurer.
VIOLENCE OF THE SUN ORIGIN SERIES
The Klan's founders devised a series of elaborate secret rituals for the organization, closely patterned after the Kuklos Adelphon, a college fraternity widespread throughout the South in the antebellum period. Its name reportedly derived from the Greek word kuklos, meaning circle or band "Klan," though redundant, was appended to the name for alliteration. The original organization was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, probably in May or early June 1866, by six young Confederate veterans.
The Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter can peer into permanently shaded craters on the moon by sensing the faint reflections of UV light coming from distant stars.The history of the Ku Klux Klan in Texas extends from the Reconstruction era to the present. These data enable scientists to estimate the amount of UV radiation reaching the Earth's surface and forecast high-UV-index days for public health awareness. The image above shows the amount of atmospheric ozone in Dobson Units-the common unit for measuring ozone concentration. The Dutch Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) onboard NASA's Aura satellite measures amounts of trace gases important to ozone chemistry and air quality. Each year, a "hole" of thinning atmospheric ozone expands over Antarctica, sometimes extending over populated areas of South America and exposing them to increased levels of harmful UV rays. This image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) spacecraft reveals new young stars in the spiral arms of galaxy M81.Ĭhemical processes in the upper atmosphere can affect the amount of atmospheric ozone that shields life at the surface from most of the Sun's harmful UV radiation. Scientists can study the formation of stars in ultraviolet since young stars shine most of their light at these wavelengths. Since the Earth's atmosphere absorbs much of the high-energy ultraviolet radiation, scientists use data from satellites positioned above the atmosphere, in orbit around the Earth, to sense UV radiation coming from our Sun and other astronomical objects. Sure enough, the paper turned black, proving the existence of ultraviolet light. Knowing that photographic paper would turn black more rapidly in blue light than in red light, he exposed the paper to light beyond violet. In 1801, Johann Ritter conducted an experiment to investigate the existence of energy beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum.
Johann Ritter's experiment was designed toexpose photographic paper to light just beyondthe visible spectrum and prove the existenceof light beyond violet-ultraviolet light.Credit: Troy Benesch DISCOVERY OF ULTRAVIOLET