Gypsies in the 19th Century. It is estimated that 800,000 Gypsies lived in Europe by the year 1800. They were most numerous in the Balkans and had a substantial presence in Spain and Italy. About this time, a German scholar, Heinrich Gellmann, proved that the Romani language was linked to some languages of India.

The first record of Gypsies in Europe is in 1417 in Germany, although it is quite likely that they arrived in Europe much earlier. They came as Christian penitents and claimed to be exiles from a land called “Little Egypt.” Europeans called them “Egyptians, ” which became corrupted as “Gypsies.”

1. Ethnic Background: Gypsies belonged to the Romani ethnic group, which was distinct from the majority populations of the countries they resided in. They had their own language, customs, and cultural practices.

2. Nomadic Lifestyle: Gypsies were known for their itinerant way of life, moving from place to place in caravans or living in temporary camps. They generally engaged in trade, horse trading, entertainment, or craftwork as means of making a living.

3. Distinctive Dress: Gypsies often had distinct clothing styles that set them apart from the local population. They might wear colorful and flamboyant outfits adorned with jewelry, headscarves, and traditional accessories.

4. Occupations: Gypsies were known for their skills in various trades and crafts such as metalworking, horse training, fortune-telling, and music. These occupations were essential to their survival and contributed to their reputation as a distinct and somewhat mysterious community.

5. Discrimination and Stereotypes: In the 19th century, Gypsies faced widespread discrimination and prejudice, often being viewed as social outcasts. They were subjected to various legal restrictions and social stigma imposed by the majority society.

It is important to note that the term “Gypsy” itself carries negative connotations today, and it is more appropriate to use the term “Romani” when referring to the people from this community.

What are common surnames among the Romani people?

In the 19th century, some common surnames among the Romani people included Smith, Lee, Boswell, Cooper, Ayres, Harris, Stanley, Wood, Brown, Taylor, and Young. These names were often adopted by Romani families as they interacted with settled communities and sought to blend in or avoid discrimination. However, it is important to note that the Romani people are not a homogeneous group, and surname usage can vary depending on regional and cultural factors.

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661 Arab Empire: Indians (Zott) brought from India to Mesopotamia.

669 /670 Arab Empire: Caliph Muawiya deports Gypsies from Basra to Antioch on the Mediterranean coast.

c. 710 Arab Empire: Caliph Walid resettles Zott from Mesopotamia to Antioch.

720 Arab Empire: Caliph Yazid II sends still more Zott to Antioch.

820 Arab Empire: Independent Zott state established in Mesopotamia.

834 Arab Empire: Zott defeated by Arabs and many of them resettled in border town of Ainzarba.

855 Arab Empire: Battle of Ainzarba fought. Greeks defeat the Arabs and take Zott soldiers and their families as prisoners to Byzantium.

c. 1050 Byzantium: Acrobats and animal doctors active (called athingani) in Constantinople.

1192 India: Battle of Terain fought. Last Gypsies leave for the west. 1290 Greece: Gypsy shoemakers appear on Mount Athos. 1322 Crete: Nomads reported on the island.

1347 Byzantium: Black Death reaches Constantinople. Gypsies move west again.

1348 Serbia: Gypsies reported in Prizren.

1362 Croatia: Gypsies reported in Dubrovnik.

1373 Corfu: Gypsies reported on the island.

1378 Bulgaria: Gypsies living in villages near Rila Monastery.

1384 Greece: Gypsy shoemakers reported in Modon.

1385 Romania: First transaction recorded of Gypsy slaves.

1399 Bohemia: The first Gypsy is mentioned in a chronicle.

1407 Germany: Gypsies visit Hildesheim. Germany: Gypsies expelled from Meissen region.

Holy Roman Empire: King Sigismund issues safe conduct to Gypsies at Lindau.

France: First Gypsies reported in Colmar. Switzerland: First Gypsies arrive.

Belgium: First Gypsies reported in Antwerp.

Holland: First Gypsies reported in Deventer.

Italy: Gypsies come to Bologna.

Italy: Andrew, Duke of Little Egypt, and his followers set off to visit Pope Martin V in Rome. Slovakia: Gypsies reported in Spissky.

1425 Spain: Gypsies reported in Zaragoza.

1447 Catalonia: Gypsies first reported.

1453 Byzantium: Turks capture Constantinople. Some Gypsies flee westward. Slovenia: A Gypsy smith is reported in the country.

1468 Cyprus: Gypsies first reported.

Switzerland: Parliament meeting in Lucerne banishes Gypsies.

Rhine Palatinate: Duke Friedrich asks his people to help the Gypsy pilgrims.

1485 Sicily: Gypsies first reported.

1489 Hungary: Gypsy musicians play on Czepel Island.

Spain: First draft of the forthcoming law of 1499 drawn up.

Italy: Gypsies expelled from Milan.

Germany (Holy Roman Empire): Expulsion of Gypsies ordered.

Spain: Expulsion of the Gypsies ordered (Pragmatica of the Catholic Kings).

Russia: Gypsies first reported.

France: Expulsion of Gypsies ordered.

Denmark: Two groups of Gypsies enter the country. Scotland: Gypsy pilgrims arrive, probably from Spain.

1510 Switzerland: Death penalty introduced for Gypsies found in the country.

1512 Catalonia: Gypsies expelled. Sweden: First Gypsies arrive.

England: Gypsies first mentioned in the country.

1554 England: The death penalty is imposed for any Gypsies not. leaving the country within a month. 1557 Poland and Lithuania: Expulsion of Gypsies ordered.

Early Separatists from the Church of England. They were named after Robert Browne, who was born at Tolethorpe Hall in Rutland, England, in the 1550s. The terms Brownists or Separatists were used to describe them by outsiders; they were known as Saints among themselves.

In 1608, a congregation of disgruntled English Protestants from the village of Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, left England and moved to Leyden, a town in Holland.

These “Separatists” did not want to pledge allegiance to the Church of England, which they believed was nearly as corrupt and idolatrous as the Catholic Church it had replaced, any longer.

Most of the Separatists aboard the Mayflower in 1620 were Brownists, and Pilgrims were known into the 20th century as the Brownist Emigration.

First, the Separatists returned to London to get organized. A prominent merchant agreed to advance the money for their journey. The Virginia Company gave them permission to establish a settlement, or “plantation,” on the East Coast between 38- and 41-degrees north latitude (roughly between the Chesapeake Bay and the mouth of the Hudson River). And the King of England gave them permission to leave the Church of England, “provided they carried themselves peaceably.”

In August 1620, a group of about 40 Saints joined a much larger group of (comparatively) secular colonists—“Strangers,” to the Saints—and set sail from Southampton, England on two merchant ships: the Mayflower and the Speedwell. The Speedwell began to leak almost immediately, however, and the ships headed back to port in Plymouth.

The travelers squeezed themselves and their belongings onto the Mayflower, a cargo ship about 80 feet long and 24 feet wide and capable of carrying 180 tons of cargo. The Mayflower set sail once again under the direction of Captain Christopher Jones.

Because of the delay caused by the leaky Speedwell, the Mayflower had to cross the Atlantic at the height of storm season. As a result, the journey was horribly unpleasant. Many of the passengers were so seasick they could scarcely get up, and the waves were so rough that one “Stranger” was swept overboard. (It was “the just hand of God upon him,” Bradford wrote later, for the young sailor had been “a proud a and very profane younge man.”)

1621 Eventually, the Plymouth colonists were absorbed into the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony. Still, the Mayflower Saints and their descendants remained convinced that they alone had been specially chosen by God to act as a beacon for Christians around the world. “As one small candle may light a thousand,” Bradford wrote, “so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sort to our whole nation.”

The Brownists were eventually absorbed into the Mennonite Church, while others joined the Baptist Church.

(They were not the same as the Puritans, who had many of the same objections to the English church but wanted to reform it from within.)

The Separatists hoped that in Holland, they would be free to worship as they liked

In fact, the Separatists, or “Saints,” as they called themselves, did find religious freedom in Holland, but they also found a secular life that was more difficult to navigate than they’d anticipated. For one thing, Dutch craft guilds excluded the migrants, so they were relegated to menial, low-paying jobs.

Even worse was Holland’s easygoing, cosmopolitan atmosphere, which proved alarmingly seductive to some of the Saints’ children. (These young people were “drawn away,” Separatist leader William Bradford wrote, “by evill [sic] example into extravagance and dangerous courses.”) For the strict, devout Separatists, this was the last straw. They decided to move again, this time to a place without government interference or worldly distraction: the “New World” across the Atlantic Ocean.

Did you know? The Separatists who founded the Plymouth Colony referred to themselves as “Saints,” not “Pilgrims.” The use of the word “Pilgrim” to describe this group did not become common until the colony’s bicentennial.

Mayflower Descendants

There are an estimated 10 million living Americans and 35 million people around the world who are descended from the original passengers on the Mayflower like Myles Standish, John Alden and William Bradford. include Humphrey Bogart, Julia Child, Norman Rockwell, and presidents John Adams, James Garfield and Zachary Taylor.

Germany: Bavaria closes its borders to Gypsies.

Portugal: Gypsies mentioned in literature.

1525 Portugal: Gypsies banned from the country. Sweden: Gypsies ordered to leave the country.

1526 Holland: Transit of Gypsies across country banned.

1530 England and Wales: Expulsion of Gypsies ordered.

1534 Slovakia: Gypsies executed in Levoca.

1536 Denmark: Gypsies ordered to leave the country.

Portugal: Deportation of Gypsies to colonies begins.

Spain: Any males found nomadizing to be sent to galleys.

Scotland: Gypsies allowed to live under own laws.

1541 Czech lands: Gypsies accused of starting a fire in Prague.

1544 England: Gypsies deported to Norway.

1547 England: Boorde publishes specimens of Romani.

1549 Bohema: Gypsies declared outlaws and to be expelled.

Estonia: First Gypsies appear in the country.

1557 Poland and Lithuania: Expulsion of Gypsies ordered. 1559 Finland: Gypsies appear on the island of Aland.

England: Provisions of previous acts widened to include people who live and travel like Gypsies.

Italy: Council of Trent affirms that Gypsies cannot be priests.

Scotland: Gypsies to either settle down or leave the country.

Ottoman Empire: Gypsy miners working in Bosnia.

Portugal: Wearing of Gypsy dress banned. Wales: Gypsies first reported.

Finland: First Gypsies reported on the mainland. 1584 Denmark and Norway: Expulsion of Gypsies ordered. 1586 Belarus: Nomadic Gypsies expelled.

1589 Denmark: Death penalty imposed for Gypsies not leaving the country.

1595 Romania: Stefan Razvan, the son of a slave, becomes ruler of Moldavia.

1611 Scotland: Three Gypsies hanged (under 1554 law).

1633 Spain: Pragmatica of Felipe IV takes effect. Gypsies expelled.

1637 Sweden : Death penalty introduced for Gypsies not leaving the country.

1692 Austria: Gypsies reported in Villach. 1714 Scotland: Two female Gypsies executed.

1715 Scotland: Ten Gypsies deported to Virginia.

1728 Holland: Last hunt clears out Gypsies.

1746 Spain: Gypsies to live in named towns.

Sweden: Foreign Gypsies expelled.

Spain: Round-up and imprisonment of all Gypsies ordered.

Austro–Hungarian Empire: Maria Theresa begins assimilation program.

Russia: Gypsies banned from St. Petersburg.

1765 Austro –Hungarian Empire: Joseph II continues assimilation program.

1776 Austria: First article published on the Indian origin of the Romani language.

Hungary: Two hundred Gypsies charged with cannibalism.

Russia: Settlement of nomads encouraged. Spain: Gypsy language and dress banned. United Kingdom: Most racial legislation against Gypsies repealed.

1791 Poland: Settlement Law introduced.

1800: Establishment of Washington, DC as U.S. capital

1802 France: Gypsies in Basque provinces rounded up and imprisoned.

1803: Louisiana Purchase deal doubles the size of the U.S Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806)

The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, was a two-year exploration of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and the Pacific Northwest region of North America, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803.

1812 Finland: Order confines nomadic Gypsies in workhouses.

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The Burning of Washington is the name given to the burning of Washington, D.C., by British forces in 1814, during the War of 1812. Strict discipline and the British commander's orders to burn only public buildings are credited with preserving most residences, but as a result the facilities of the U.S. government, including the White House, were largely destroyed.

One of Biden's great-great-great-grandfathers was born in Sussex, England, and emigrated to Maryland in the United States by 1820.

Nancy Pelosi Father: D'Alesandro was born in Baltimore on August 1, 1903. He was the son of Maria Antonia Petronilla and Tommaso F. D'Alessandro. His father was born in Montenerodomo, Abruzzo, Italy, and his mother was born in Baltimore, to parents from Genoa, Liguria, Italy.[1] D'Alesandro attended Calvert Business College in Baltimore. Before beginning his political career, he worked as an insurance and real estate broker.[2]

1822 United Kingdom: Turnpike Act introduced: Gypsies camping on the roadside to be fined.

1823: Monroe Doctrine announces the U.S. as a global player

1828: Baltimore-Ohio railroad starts the transport revolution

1830 Germany: Authorities in Nordhausen remove children from their families for fostering with non-Gypsies.

The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans and their enslaved African Americans within that were ethnically clea...

1835 Denmark: Hunt for Travelers in Jutland. United Kingdom: Highways Act strengthens the provisions of the 1822 Turnpike Act.

1837 Spain: George Borrow translates St. Luke’s Gospel into Romani.

Transylvania: Serfs (including Gypsies) emancipated.

Denmark: Gypsies allowed into the country again.

The California gold rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated.

The Orphan Train Movement was a social experiment that transported children from crowded coastal cities of the United States, such as New York City and Boston, to willing foster homes across the country. The orphan trains ran between 1854 and 1929, relocating an estimated 250,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children.

1855 Romania: Gypsy slaves in Moldavia emancipated.

1856 Romania: Gypsy slaves in Wallachia emancipated.

1860 Sweden: Immigration restrictions eased.

Because of the Circassian genocide, which was perpetrated by the Russian Empire during the Russo-Circassian War in the 19th century, most of the Circassian people were exiled from their ancestral homeland and consequently began living in what was then the Ottoman Empire—that is, modern-day Turkey and the rest of the Middle East.

In the early 1990s, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization estimated that there are as many as 3.7 million Circassians in diaspora in over 50 countries.

The two Circassian languages—western Adyghe and eastern Kabardian—are natively spoken by the Circassian people.

In May 1864, a final battle took place between the Circassian army of 20,000 Circassian horsemen and a fully equipped Russian army of 100,000 men

The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States or simply the Civil War (see naming), was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 in the United States after several Southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America (the "Confederacy" or the "South").

North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the " Pacific Railroad " and later as the "Overland Route") was a 1,911-mile (3,075 km) continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay.

1865 Scotland: Trespass (Scotland) Act introduced.

1868 Holland: New immigration of Gypsies reported.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Usually considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to formerly enslaved Americans following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in

In United States history, the Gilded Age is the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was named by 1920s historians after Mark Twain's 1873 novel The Gilded Age

1872 Belgium: Foreign Gypsies expelled.

Ottoman Empire: Muslim Gypsies given equal rights with other Muslims.

Denmark: Gypsies barred from the country once more.

Bulgaria: In a pogrom, villagers massacre the Muslim Gypsies in Koprivshtitsa.

1879 Hungary: National conference of Gypsies held in Kisfalu. Serbia: Nomadism banned.

Many years before there was a $15-billion empire to fret over, there was a ten-year-old immigrant boy with little more than a sharp mind and an unyielding will to succeed. Nicholas Pritzker arrived in Chicago in 1881 after his family had fled the Jewish ghetto near Kiev, Russia.

The Kennedy family (Irish: Ó Cinnéide) is an American political family that has long been prominent in American politics, public service, entertainment, and business. In 1884, 35 years after the family's arrival from County Wexford, Ireland.

1886 Bulgaria: Nomadism banned. Germany: Bismarck recommends expulsion of foreign Gypsies.

1888 United Kingdom: Gypsy Lore Society established.

Electrical service to American homes began in the late 1890s and blossomed from 1920 to 1935, by which time 70 percent of American homes were connected to the electrical utility grid

The Capone family immigrated to the United States in 1893 and settled at 95 Navy Street, in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn, near the Barber Shop that employed Gabriele at 29 Park Avenue. When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

THE “BANANA WARS” is a term coined for the conflicts involving the United States across Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean from 1898 to 1934.

1899 Germany: Police Gypsy Information Service set up in Munich by Alfred Dillmann.

Germany: Prussian Parliament unanimously adopts proposal to regulate Gypsy movement and work.

Bulgaria: Sofia conference held, demanding voting rights for Gypsies. Germany: A census of all Gypsies in Bavaria is taken.

Finland: Mission to the Gypsies set up. France: Identity card introduced for nomads. Germany: Prussian minister issues special instructions to police to “combat the Gypsy nuisance.”

1914 Norway: Some 30 Gypsies are given Norwegian nationality. Sweden: Deportation Act also makes new immigration of Gypsies difficult.

Holland: Caravan and House Boat Law introduces controls.

Bulgaria: Istiqbal organization founded.

Germany: In Baden, all Gypsies are to be photographed and fingerprinted.

Bulgaria: Journal Istiqbal [Future] starts publication.

Slovakia: A group of Gypsies is tried for cannibalism; they are found innocent.

USSR: All-Russian Union of Gypsies established.

Germany: Bavarian state parliament brings in a new law “to combat Gypsy nomads and idlers.” Switzerland: Pro Juventute starts a program of forced removal of Gypsy children from their families for fostering. USSR: First moves to settle nomadic Gypsies.

Germany: Legislation requiring the photographing and fingerprinting of Gypsies instituted in Prussia. Bavaria institutes laws forbidding Gypsies to travel in large groups or to own firearms. Norway: The Aliens Act bars foreign Gypsies from the country. USSR: Journal Romani Zorya (Romany Dawn) starts publication.

Germany: Nomadic Gypsies in Germany are to be placed under permanent police surveillance. Prof. Hans F. Günther writes that it was the Gypsies who introduced foreign blood into Europe. Slovakia: Pogrom takes place in Pobedim.

USSR: Nikolai Pankov’s Romani book Buti i Dzinaiben [Work and Knowledge] published.

Norway: A doctor recommends that all Travelers be sterilized. USSR: First issue of the journal Nevo Drom [New Way] appears.

USSR: Teatr Romen opens in Moscow.

1933 Austria: Officials in Burgenland call for the withdrawal of all civil rights for Gypsies. Bulgaria: Journal Terbie [Education] starts publication. Germany: The National Socialist (Nazi) Party comes to power, and measures against Jews and Gypsies begin. Gypsy musicians barred from the State Cultural Chamber. Sinto boxer Johann Trollmann stripped of his title as light-heavyweight champion for “racial reasons.” Act for the Prevention of Hereditarily Ill Offspring, also known as the Sterilization Act, instituted. During “Beggars’ Week,” many Gypsies were arrested.

Latvia: St. John’s Gospel translated into Romani. Romania: General Association of the Gypsies of Romania founded. National conference held. Journals Neamul Tiganesc [Gypsy Nation] and Timpul [Time] start publication. USSR: Teatr Romen performs the opera, Carmen.

Germany: Gypsies who cannot prove German nationality expelled. Romania: Bucharest “international” Congress.

Germany: Marriages between Gypsies and Germans banned. Yugoslavia: Journal Romano Lil starts publication.

Germany: The right to vote removed from Gypsies. June-Internment camp at Marzahn opened. General Decree for Fighting the Gypsy Menace instituted. November-Racial Hygiene and Population Biological Research Unit of the Health Office begins its work. The minister of war orders that Gypsies should not be called up for active military service.

Poland: Janusz Kwiek elected king of the Gypsies.

Germany: April-Decree on the Preventative Fight against Crime: All Gypsies classed as antisocial. Many Gypsies arrested to be forced labor for the building of concentration camps. June-Second wave of arrests to provide labor to build the camps. Autumn-Racial Hygiene Research Center begins to set up an archive of Gypsy tribes. October-National Center for Fighting the Gypsy Menace established. December-“Fight against the Gypsy Menace” ordered. USSR: Government bans Romani language and culture.

Germany: September-Deportation of 30,000 Gypsies planned. October-Settlement Decree: Gypsies not allowed to travel. November– Gypsy fortune-tellers arrested and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp.German–occupied Czech lands: Nomadism forbidden. German–occupied Poland: Special identity cards issued for Gypsies.

Austria: August-Internment camp built in Salzburg. October– Internment of the Gypsies in Burgenland ordered. November– Internment camp for Gypsies set up in Lackenbach. Czech lands: August-Labor camps set up in Lety and Hodonín. France: April– Government opens internment camps for nomads. Germany: Heinrich Himmler orders the resettlement of Gypsies in western Poland.

Baltic States: December-Governor Hinrich Lohse orders that Gypsies should “be given the same treatment as Jews.” Croatia: Jaseno-vac concentration camp opened. Czech lands: October-Decision that Gypsies from the so-called Protectorate are to be sent to a concentration camp. Germany: March-Exclusion of Gypsy children from school begins. July-Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler’s deputy, brings the Gypsies into the plans for a Final Solution to the “Jewish problem.” Latvia: December-All 101 Gypsies in the town of Libau are executed. Poland: October-A Gypsy camp is set up in the Jewish ghetto of Lodz for 5,000 inmates. Serbia: May-German military commander states that Gypsies will be treated as Jews. November-German military command orders the immediate arrest of all Jews and Gypsies, to be held as hostages. Slovakia: April-Decree separating the Gypsies from the majority population. USSR: June–Schutzstaffel (Storm Troopers) Task Forces move into the occupied areas and systematically kill Jews and Romanies. September-Task forces carry out mass executions of Jews and Romanies in the Babi Yar valley. December-Task Force C murders 824 Gypsies in Simferopol. Yugoslavia: October-German army executes 2,100 Jewish and Gypsy hostages (as reprisal for soldiers killed by partisans).

Bulgaria: August-6,500 Gypsies registered by the police on one day. Croatia: May-The government and the Ustasha order the arrest of all Gypsies and their deportation to the extermination camp in Jasenovac. Germany: March-A special additional income tax is levied on Gypsies. July-A decree of the army general staff again orders that Gypsies not be taken for active military service. September– Himmler and Justice Minister Otto Thierack agree to transfer any Gypsies in prison to concentration camps. December-Himmler issues the order to deport the Gypsies in Greater Germany to the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Poland: January-All Sinti and Romanies from the Lodz ghetto are transported and gassed at Chelmno. April-Romanies are brought into the Warsaw ghetto and kept in the prison in Gesia Street. May-All Gypsies in the Warsaw district to be interned in Jewish ghettoes. July-Several hundred Polish Romanies killed at Treblinka extermination camp. Romania: Spring and Summer -Some 20,000 Romanies are deported to Transnistria. Serbia: August-Harald Turner, head of the German military administration, announces that “the Gypsy question has been fully solved.”

Poland: January-Gypsies from Warsaw ghetto transferred to the extermination camp at Treblinka. February-First transports of Sinti and Romanies from Germany are delivered to the new Gypsy Section in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. March – At Auschwitz, the Schutzstaffel (Storm Troopers) (SS) gasses some 1,700 men, women, and children. May-A further 1,030 men, women, and children gassed by the SS at Auschwitz. SS major Dr. Josef Mengele transferred at his own request to Auschwitz. July-Himmler visits the Gypsy Section in Auschwitz and orders the Gypsies killed. USSR: November-Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories orders all nomadic Gypsies in the territories are to be treated as Jews.

Belgium: January-A transport of 351 Romanies and Sinti from Belgium dispatched to Auschwitz. Holland: May-A transport of 245 Romanies and Sinti sent to Auschwitz. Poland: 2 August -1,400 Gypsy prisoners are sent from Auschwitz to Buchenwald concentration camp. The remaining 2,900 Gypsies are killed in the gas chamber. Slovakia: Autumn-Romanies join the fight of partisans in the National Uprising.

27 January -At 3:00 p.m., the first Soviet soldiers reach the main camp at Auschwitz and find one Romany among the survivors. May-World War II ends in Europe. All surviving Gypsies freed from camps. Bulgaria: Gypsy Organization for the Fight against Fascism and Racism set up. Germany: Nuremburg Trials of Nazi leaders begin. Crimes against Gypsies are included in the charges.

France: Mateo Maximoff’s novel The Ursitory published. Poland: Roma Ensemble founded.

Bulgaria: Teatr Roma established in Sofia.

Bulgaria: Teatr Roma in Sofia closed.

France: The Pentecostal movement among Gypsies starts.

Denmark: Gypsies readmitted to the country.

Source: Historical dictionary of the Gypsies. Donald Kenrick.

Unlike in many southeastern European countries, Romani people (Gypsies*) make up only a small portion of the Lithuanian population (2 500 people) but they used to be very visible for those who seek. Next to Vilnius international airport, there was a unique Gypsy district ("Taboras") full of illegally constructed wooden shacks whose owners refuse to.

Gypsies are noted in the 12th-century history of Constantinople as bear keepers, snake charmers, fortune tellers, and sellers of magic amulets to ward off the evil eye. Balsamon warned the Greeks to avoid these "ventriloquists and wizards" that he said were in league with the Devil.

Symon Simeonis describes Gypsies in Crete (1323) as "asserting themselves to be of the family of Ham. They rarely or never stop in one place beyond thirty days, but always wandering and fugitive, as though accursed by God ... from field to field with their oblong tents, back and low."

Gypsies living in Modon are described in 1497 by Arnold von Harff as "many poor black naked people ... called Gypsies ... follow all kinds of trade, such as shoemaking and cobbling and also smithery."

Gypsies are reported in Serbia in 1348; Croatia in 1362 (as goldsmiths); and Romania in 1378—as slaves put to work as barbers, tailors, bakers, masons, and household servants.

Gypsies first surfaced in Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, and Spain in 1414–1417. During this time, they traveled about with a safe-conduct (similar to a passport) from Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. After Sigismund died, Gypsies traveled around Europe with safe-conduct letters from the Pope. Those from Sigismund were legitimate, but the supposed papal letters were forgeries.

Hermann Conerus wrote this about Gypsies: "They traveled in bands and camped at night in the fields outside the towns ... They were great thieves, especially their women, and several of them in various places were seized and put to death."

In Switzerland, it was noted that Gypsies wore rags that resembled blankets but were bedecked in gold and silver jewelry. The Gypsy women became known as palm readers and petty thieves suspected of sorcery. Many towns in Europe began to pay Gypsies to go away as soon as they appeared.

A Bologna chronicle from 1422 gave this account of a visit from a Gypsy group

"Amongst those who wished to have their fortunes told, few went to consult without having their purse stolen . . . The women of the band wandered about the town, six or eight together; they entered the houses of the citizens and told idle tales, during which some of them laid hold of whatever could be taken. In the same way, they visited the shops under the pretext of buying something, but one of them would steal."

In the 15th century, the Gypsies spread many myths about themselves around Europe. The greatest of these myths was outlined in the forged papal letter. The letter stated that the Gypsies had been sentenced by the Pope for their collective sins to live as nomads, never to sleep in a bed.

Along with that sad tale, the letter instructed the people reading it to give the Gypsies food, money, and beer and exempt them from any tolls and taxes.

Even though the majority of Gypsy people left the Ottoman Empire and moved on to Europe, some remained. Suleiman the Magnificent issued a decree to regulate Gypsy prostitution in 1530. It is known that Gypsy men played a significant role as miners in the Ottoman Empire of the 16th century. Others were watchmen, iron workers, and charcoal burners.

In 1696, Sultan Mustafa II issued orders for Gypsies to be disciplined for their immoral and disorderly lifestyles. They were described as "pimps and prostitutes." But we also find that Gypsy people worked in the Ottoman Empire as broom-makers, chimney-sweeps, musicians, weapon-repairers, and in the manufacture of weapons and ammunition.

Gypsies are first noted as musicians in European history in 1469 (Italy). In 1493, they were banned from Milan because they were beggars and thieves who disturbed the peace. While a turban-wearing Gypsy woman told your fortune, her children would pick your pockets.

It was said that the Gypsy women cast spells and practiced witchcraft; the Gypsy men were experts at picking locks and pilfering horses.

Settled people are usually suspicious of rootless, masterless wanderers with no fixed address. The Gypsies traveled about Europe as did no other people, so they knew more than most about what was happening in various countries and the activities of their inhabitants. This led to rumors that Gypsies were being used as spies.

In 1497, the Diet (legislature) of the Holy Roman Empire issued a decree that expelled all Gypsies from Germany for espionage. In 1510, Switzerland followed suit and added the death penalty. A Swiss chronicler denounced Gypsies as "useless rascals who wander about in our day, and of whom the most worthy is a thief, for they live solely for stealing."

One hundred thirty-three laws against Gypsies were passed in the Holy Roman Empire between 1551 and 1774. One of those, passed in 1710, made it a crime to be a Gypsy woman or an old Gypsy man in Germany. They were widely viewed as a godless and wicked people. Violators were to be flogged, branded, and deported.

“What hath God wrought?” Although the query posed by Samuel Morse related to the unforeseeable consequences of his “Morse code” telegraphic breakthrough, it could just as easily have been directed at the topic of the religious pilgrimage to America. For it was a God-fearing Pilgrim sect called the Puritans who inadvertently set the wheels in motion for a vast criminal reign that would rule the New World two centuries hence.

Espousing a dogmatic, Bible-ruling theocracy, these seventeenth-century settlers to colonial America set the stage for a hedonistic backlash that reverberates to this day. Their humanity-denying canon in fact helped contribute the most unsightly fabric to the patchwork of the soon-to-benamed United States of America. The “law of unintended consequences” was never more aptly applied. The late-nineteenth-century immigration wave deposited an assemblage of new citizens on America’s shores, many fr

To be a Gypsy man in Germany was to be given a life sentence of prison and hard labor. Children of Gypsy people were taken away from them and put into good Christian homes.

In the face of this persecution, we find Gypsy men in Germany forming gangs and turning violent in the eighteenth century. A huge crowd gathered at Giessen, Hesse, to watch the executions of 26 Gypsies in 1726. They were a gang led by the notorious Hemperla (Johannes la Fortun). Some were hung; some were beheaded.

The most famous of the German Gypsy brigands was Hannikel (Jakob Reinhard). He was hanged in 1783, along with three of his henchmen, for murder. Hannikel had himself a little army, which included women and children. His father was a platoon drummer.

In view of this violence, the King of Prussia decided in 1790 that Gypsy men should all be drafted into the military. Other European countries followed suit, and Gypsy men have since served as soldiers for every country in Europe.

Sign warning Gypsies they will be flogged and branded if they enter the Netherlands (1710)

We first find Gypsies in Scotland in 1505 as tinkers, peddlers, dancers, raconteurs, guisers, and mountebanks. In 1609, the Vagabonds Act was aimed at Gypsies, and four male members of the Faw family were hung in 1611 for not maintaining a permanent address. Eight more men, six of them with the last name of Faa, were hanged in 1624 for being "Egyptians."

The Scottish Gypsy surnames Faa and Baille go back perhaps 500 years. A new decree was issued in 1624 that traveling Gypsy men would be arrested and hanged, Gypsy women without children would be drowned, and Gypsy women with children would be whipped and branded on the cheek.

Billy Marshall was a famous Gypsy King in Scotland. He died in 1792 after living 120 years. Billy Marshall fathered over 100 children, some by his 17 wives and some by other women.

In England, the Egyptian Act of 1530 was passed to expel Gypsies from the realm, for being lewd vagabonds, conning the good citizens out of their money, and committing a rash of felony robberies. In 1562, Queen Elizabeth signed an order designed to force Gypsies to settle into permanent dwellings or face death. Several were hanged in 1577, nine more in 1596, and 13 in the 1650s.

Under King James I, England began to deport Gypsy people to the American colonies, as well as Jamaica and Barbados. Dumping undesirables into the colonies became a widespread practice, not only Gypsies but also "thieves, beggars, and whores."

Abram Wood and his family were the first Gypsies to settle in Wales circa 1730. Abram was a great fiddler and storyteller. He became known as the King of the Welsh Gypsies. The sons and grandsons of Abram Wood mastered the national instrument of Wales: the harp.

Gypsy mule clippers in Spain (lithograph by Villain)

In Provence, it seems the Gypsies were welcomed. It is there that they first began to be called Bohemians. People flocked to them to have their fortunes told. The Gypsies claimed to have dukes and counts among them and later added captains and kings.

The Spanish nobility protected the Gypsies at first. Gypsy women were adored for their beauty and seductive charms; Gypsy men were admired as excellent judges of the quality of horses and hired by nobles to procure them for their stables. But in 1499, King Charles expelled all Gypsies from Spain under penalty of enslavement.

King Philip III again ordered all Gypsies (who were called Gitanos) out of Spain in 1619, this time under penalty of death. An exception was granted for those who would settle down in one place, dress as Spaniards, and stop speaking their ancient language. Philip IV lowered the penalties to six years on the galleys for men and a good flogging for women in 1633.

The city with the most Gypsies was, at the time, Seville. Many Gypsies were publicly flogged there for deceiving the populace by claiming to reveal secrets by divination, heal the sick by magic, cast spells, and for selling maps to buried treasure.

A new plan was hatched and executed in 1749, by which all Gypsies in Spain (est. 12,000) would be rounded up in a single night and forced into slavery, with their possessions confiscated. Gypsy women were sent to work as spinners, boys in factories, men in mines and shipyards. Fourteen years later, they were freed by King Charles III.

In 1783, legislation was enacted whereby all Gypsy people were required to maintain a permanent address (but not in Madrid). However, this bill banned them from working in many of their popular livelihoods, such as shearing, trading in markets or fairs, and innkeeping.

Those who continued to live as nomads were to have their children taken from them and placed in orphanages; a second offense would result in execution.

Portugal banned Gypsies in 1526, and any of them born there were deported to the Portuguese African colonies. The first record of Gypsy people being deported to Brazil appears in 1574. Whole groups of them were sent to Brazil in 1686. There were also times in the seventeenth century when the policy was only to send Gypsy women to the colonies, while the men were enslaved on galleys.

Hungarian Gypsies at Carpentras in 1868 (painting by Denis Bonnet)

The King of France, Charles IX, banned Gypsies in 1561. He ordered that any Gypsy man caught in France be sentenced to three years on the galleys, although they were pronounced a non-violent people. In 1607, Henry IV enjoyed Gypsy dancers at court. By 1666, Gypsy men were again condemned to galleys—this time for life—and Gypsy women caught in France had their heads shaved.

The Gypsies were declared royal servants in Hungary and valued as smiths and makers of fine weaponry. They were called "Pharaoh's people" on official Hungarian documents. In a letter from the queen's court in Vienna (1543) it says, "here the most excellent Egyptian musicians play." Gypsies also served as messengers and executioners.

Gypsies were expelled from Denmark in 1536 and Sweden in 1560. All these problems with the authorities of European countries resulted in many Gypsy encampments being set up in remote areas on borders since police had no authority beyond their provinces. More and more Gypsy men and women were being flogged and branded.

Ferenc Bunko's Band 1854 (Drawing by Varsanyl)

A census was conducted in Hungary (1783) that counted over 50,000 Gypsies. They are described as wanderers who lived in tents except in winter, when they retreated into cave dwellings. Gypsies had no chairs or beds, did not use kitchen utensils, ate mostly meat and noodles, loved tobacco and alcohol. They were disdained for eating carrion.

Gypsy people had only one set of clothes but lots of jewelry. They were known to be peddlers, beggars, and thieves. Gypsy men were renowned as excellent horsemen and horse traders. Some worked as skinners, as makers of sieves or wooden implements, as gold-sifters or gold-washers, even as tavern keepers.

Gypsies were known as exceptionally proud people but with little shame or honor. Parents loved their children very much but did not educate them. The Gypsy way of life was contrary to the rules of every organized society. And those who did settle down were disdained by those who continued as nomads.

An early reading waggon in Nottingdale, London, 1879

Gypsies in the 19th Century

It is estimated that 800,000 Gypsies lived in Europe by the year 1800. They were most numerous in the Balkans and had a substantial presence in Spain and Italy. About this time, a German scholar, Heinrich Gellmann, proved that the Romani language was linked to some languages of India. Although these people would no longer be considered Egyptians, the name Gypsy stuck (as well as the word "gyp").

During the 19th century, Gypsies became prominent as musicians, chiefly in Hungary, Spain, and Russia. Hungarian nobility developed a tradition of having a Gypsy minstrel next to the host of a banquet to play for his guests. Before long, Gypsy bands proliferated, always including a virtuoso violinist.

The first famous Gypsy violinist was Janos Bihari, from Bratislava, who performed at the Congress of Vienna in 1814. By 1850, Gypsy music was popular all over Europe. Gypsy groups went on the road to perform, some as far as America. In 1865, Ferenc Bunko played for the King of Prussia. Imitators of the famous Gypsy bands were soon ubiquitous in Europe, playing in taverns, markets, fairs, festivals, and weddings.

In Russia, Gypsies were beloved more for their singing talents. Most every noble family employed a Gypsy chorus, with Gypsy women (who were also dancers) in the main roles, accompanied by a seven-string Russian guitar. The first recorded singer of flamenco music in Spain is a Gypsy man, Tio Luis el de la Juliana.

Types of English Gypsy vans

The Census of Hungary in 1893 identified 275,000 Gypsies, with most of them by now sedentary, gathered in their own enclaves. Ninety percent of the Gypsy people were illiterate; 70 percent of Gypsy children did not attend school.

Besides musicians and horse traders, the Gypsy men were primarily engaged as smiths, brickmakers, and construction workers. Women were mostly hawkers. The largest concentration of them was in Transylvania.

In Victorian England, we see the emergence of Gypsy caravans with horse-drawn wagons (vardos) and donkeys or mules in trains. Nomadic Gypsies still lived in tents—even in winter. The Gypsy folk are noted currently as tinkers, potters, basket makers, brush makers, and cheapjack's. It was also in the nineteenth century that they became known as Travelers.

It appears that the Gypsy population in Britain was about 13,000 by 1900. The Gypsies served a useful function by distributing goods to remote towns and villages not yet served by trains. They enlivened village festivals with their musicianship, singing, and dancing.

They gained a good reputation as people who could repair almost anything. Townsfolk would await the arrival of the Travelers to hear the latest news and gossip from other parts of the realm.

Gypsies were also quite involved in the harvesting of hops in England and Ireland, while their womenfolk worked carnivals and fairs telling fortunes. One writer invited tourists to come and see the Gypsies but advised them to come in the morning, as at night the Gypsies are inebriated.

The coming of mechanized harvesting machines, as well as cheap machine-manufactured goods, lessened the demand for work common to Gypsy travelers.

French Gypsies

In Romania, 200,000 Gypsy persons were still enslaved in the first half of the nineteenth century. They worked as grooms, coachmen, cooks, barbers, tailors, farriers, comb makers, and domestic servants. Their master's could kill them with impunity.

One reformer described the treatment of these slaves in Iasi: "human beings wearing chains on their arms and legs, others with iron clamps round their foreheads ... Cruel floggings and other punishments, such as starvation, being hung over smoking fires, being thrown naked into a frozen river ... children torn from the breasts of those who brought them into the world, and sold ... like cattle."

Before World War One, Gypsies drew huge crowds in England and France when they would wander into a town. People longed to see Gypsy women in person, with gold coins around their necks and bosoms, as well as in their hair-plaits. Gypsy men would call on factories, breweries, hotels, and restaurants in search of work repairing copper vessels and the like.

The United States welcomed many Ludar, or "Romanian Gypsies" (actually, most were from Bosnia) from 1880 to 1914. These people joined circuses as animal trainers and performers. Passenger manifests show that they brought bears and monkeys with them across the Atlantic.

Gypsy woman

Gypsy Marriage Traditions

In traditional Gypsy culture, the father arranges the marriage of his son with the father of a prospective bride. The young people generally have the right of refusal. The father of the groom pays a bride-price, which varies according to the status of the two fathers and the two families, as well as the girl's potential as an earner and "history."

The new couple then reside with the parents of the groom. The new bride must perform household duties for her in-laws. Sometimes, families exchange daughters as brides for their respective sons.

A great fear of Gypsy people through the ages has been of the mullo (a ghost or vampire). In some tribes of Gypsies, it is customary to destroy all property belonging to a dead person to prevent them from haunting the living. In England, this would include the person's living-wagon (van).

The Gypsies also dread being declared "polluted" by their clan, which is social death. One can become polluted (defiled) by contact with an unclean female, whose lower parts are considered marime. This term is complicated, but we can safely say it has much to do with genitalia, bodily functions, puberty, menstruation, sex, pregnancy, and childbirth.

Kalderash women on the march in England, 1911

Gypsies in the 20th Century

Gypsies were never well received in Germany. Near the close of the 19th century, things got worse as Germans subscribed to the theories of Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso. One of his ideas was that criminality is inherited.

As one proof of this, Lombroso pointed to the Gypsies, whom he described as generation after generation of people who are vain, shameless, shiftless, noisy, licentious, and violent. Not to mention puppeteers and accordion players.

In 1886, Bismarck noted "complaints about the mischief caused by bands of Gypsies traveling about in the Reich and their increasing molestation of the population." In 1899, a clearing house was set up in Munich to collate reports of the movements of Gypsies.

The general German opinion was that the nomadic Gypsies used the cover of being entertainers and perfume dealers but focused on begging and stealing.

In 1905, Alfred Dillmann distributed his Gypsy Book to police around Europe. The book profiled 3,500 Gypsies. Dillmann hoped it would help eradicate the "Gypsy Plague." By 1926, laws were passed that made it compulsory for Gypsies in Germany to have a permanent address and maintain regular employment.

Violators were sentenced to two years in a workhouse. The reason for this penalty was: "These people are by nature opposed to all work and find it especially difficult to tolerate any restriction of their nomadic life; nothing, therefore, hits them harder than loss of liberty, coupled with forced labor."

In Switzerland, after 1926, Gypsy children were taken from their parents; their names were changed and placed in foster homes. This policy ended in 1973.

Nazi spokesman Georg Nawrocki had this to say in 1937: "It was in keeping with the inner weakness and mendacity of the Weimar Republic that it showed no instinct for tackling the Gypsy question ... We, on the other hand, see the Gypsy question as above all a racial problem, which must be solved and which is being solved." The National Socialists designated Gypsies, along with Jews, for annihilation.

Dr. Robert Ritter, a Nazi scientist, wrote in 1940: "Gypsies [are] a people of entirely primitive ethnological origins, whose mental backwardness makes them incapable of real social adaptation ... The Gypsy question can only be solved when ... the good-for-nothing Gypsy individuals ... [are] in large labor camps and kept working there, and when further breeding of this population ... is stopped once and for all."

The National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI) rounded up the Gypsies for "protective custody" and shipped them off to concentration camps. Gypsy persons were forcibly sterilized, the subjects of medical experiments, injected with typhus, worked to death, starved to death, froze to death, and gassed in various numbers. The total dead at the hands of the Nazis is estimated to be 275,000.

By the 1960s, Gypsy caravans were now mostly drawn with motorized vehicles, and tents had largely been replaced by rough shacks. Many took up residence in state-supplied slum housing. Most Gypsies remained uneducated and illiterate.

Many of the men became scrap dealers, and some worked with copper to produce ornamental, decorative pieces of art. Gypsy women were still noted for fortune telling and begging. Some Gypsy children turned to shoplifting, picking pockets, and stealing from vehicles since they were immune to prosecution.

One would expect that Gypsy people would have fared well under Communist regimes, what with their stated philosophy of equality for all. But entrepreneurial activities were illegal in Communist states, and these were the specialties of Gypsies.

There were 134,000 Gypsies in the Soviet Union in 1959; by the census of 1979, they numbered 209,000. Nomadism was against Soviet law. Work in Soviet factories and farms held little appeal to Gypsies.

Starting in the 1950s, Poland offered housing and employment to Gypsies, but most continued to wander. Therefore, Gypsies were forbidden to travel in caravans in 1964. This law was strictly enforced, and within two years, 80 percent of Gypsy children were enrolled in school.

In Czechoslovakia, a law was passed in 1958 that forced Gypsies into settlements. Violators had their horses killed and wagons burned. The Czech people looked down on Gypsies as a primitive, backward, and degenerate people. Two hundred twenty-two thousand of them were counted in the 1966 census, and 9 percent of all babies born that year in Czechoslovakia were Gypsies. Their numbers rose to 288,000 by 1980.

Romania, in the early 1970s, tried to obliterate Gypsy culture and force the Gypsies into squalid ghettos. Their valuables were confiscated, including their favorite form of savings—huge old gold coins. Bulgaria forbade Gypsies to travel and closed their associations and newspapers.

Things were better under the milder form of Communism practiced in Yugoslavia. There we see television and radio stations that broadcast in the Romani language. Gypsies began to participate in regional politics, and a few hundred of them became doctors, lawyers, and engineers.

Still, only 20 percent of Gypsy adults had even attended elementary school. They settled in small towns and began buying and selling ready-made goods, surplus and seconds, and used clothing.

Gypsy dancer

Gypsies embraced education more readily in Britain. They seemed to become aware that at least basic school learning is necessary in the modern age. It is handy to be able to write estimates and receipts; to read plans and manuals; to hold a driving license and insurance; and mostly, to be able to deal with Britain's social services bureaucracy.

A 1989 report by the European Community stated that only 35 percent of 500,000 Gypsy children in the 12 member states attended school regularly; half had never been to school even one time; hardly any went on to secondary education; and Gypsy adults had an illiteracy rate of 50 percent.

Spain decided to integrate the Gypsies, but there was a fierce backlash from Spanish citizens against having Gypsies as neighbors or having their children attend school with Gypsy children. In Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, settled Gypsy families were beaten up and their houses set on fire. For this reason, some reverted to the nomadic life.

The Caravans—Gypsy Camp Near Arles (painting by Vincent van Gogh)

Gypsies Today

Today, there are five or six million Gypsies living in Europe. Over one million live in Romania; half a million in both Bulgaria and Hungary; a quarter of a million in Russia, Spain, Serbia, and Slovakia.

In France and Italy, Gypsy families still work the circus and fairgrounds. In many countries, they operate repair services of various types; sell used cars, furniture, antiques, and junk; sell carpet and textiles. They still hawk, make music, and tell fortunes.

One new development is the rise in Pentecostalism among Gypsies. There is even a Gypsy Evangelical Church, with over 200 churches in France alone.

There have been six World Romani Congress forums held from 1971 to 2004 to discuss how best to press for rights for the Gypsy people.

Answer: It is estimated that we have one million Gypsies in America. I certainly do not consider them 'pests' and in my long life have never heard them described as anything but people - just like everybody else.

Question: My exposure to the gypsy culture was a gift however do they still sell off their daughters around age 9 to much older men? Do they still lack official birth names, social security numbers, consistent addresses, and or bank accounts? Do they still sell junk RV's to old people that have been spray painted and molded with bondo? This was what I experienced.

Answer: I am not aware of the selling of children to old men. I would think most of them do have government papers but maybe not consistent addresses. As to the RV question I would guess 'yes' but I have no evidence to back that up.

Gypsies - Italians & Jews -No Official History of Gypsies. Where do they come from? How to throw up and NOT DIE of a stroke. 01:19:19 Share

Psychopath In Your Life with Dianne Emerson

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Gypsies - Italians & Jews -No Official History of Gypsies. Where do they come from? How to throw up and NOT DIE of a stroke.