In 1725 Leendert Hasenbosch was marooned on an island
Leendert Hasenbosch was an employee of the Dutch East India Company who was marooned on an uninhabited island in the South Atlantic Ocean after his shipmates found him guilty of the crime of sodomy.
Hasenbosch was born in Holland, probably around 1695. When he was a teenager, his father — a widower — moved to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies with his daughters, leaving his teenage son in Holland. What was then known as Batavia is now part of Indonesia.
In 1714 he joined the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), known in English as the Dutch East India Company. Hasenbosch served as a soldier and travelled to Batavia, where he served for a year. Later he spent time working for the company in India. In 1720 he returned to Batavia and was promoted to the rank of corporal.
On 17 April 1725 he was convicted of sodomy after his ship made a stop in Cape Town, South Africa. As punishment he was marooned on Ascension Island on this day in 1725. The volcanic island is 1,600 kilometres from Africa and 2,300 kilometres from South America.
He was left with a month’s worth of water, some seeds, prayer books, writing materials, clothing and a tent. It is presumed that he died about six months after he was abandoned on the island.
In January of the following year, British sailors discovered his tent and his diary. The original diary was lost long ago, but copies of the translation published in Britain give us some idea of what happened after he was left on the island.
Unable to find a constant supply of water, Hasenbosch reportedly took to drinking his own urine and also tried drinking the blood of turtles and seabirds. It is believed he eventually died of thirst, but his body was never found.
Over the centuries, various versions of his diary were published, often attributed to an unknown sailor. Their accuracy became less reliable with each passing iteration.
In 2002 Dutch historian Michiel Koolbergen confirmed that the marooned man was Leendert Hasenbosch. His book A Dutch Castaway on Ascension Island in 1725 was published posthumously in 2006.
Two years after Hasenbosch was marooned, the crew of the Dutch East India Company ship The Zeewijk became shipwrecked on the Abrolhos Islands in June 1727. The crew survived on the islands as there was fresh water and plentiful food sources, and longboats from the wreckage were recovered.
In December 1727, two other young men who were part of the ship’s crew were found guilty of sodomy and transported to separate islands, where they were left to die.
The picture that changed the face of AIDS
avid Kirby was a gay rights activist in the USA. He died on this day in 1990, aged 33.
Kirby had been living in Los Angeles and was estranged from his family, but after learning he had contracted HIV he reached out to them again. In 1990 he asked if he could return home to Columbus, Ohio, so he could be surrounded by those he loved when he died. His family welcomed him back.
At a time before effective treatments were available, those diagnosed with HIV faced a grim future. Kirby spent his final weeks at Pater Noster House, an AIDS hospice.
There he met Therese Frare, a journalism student who was volunteering at the facility and had begun taking black‑and‑white photographs of the people she was caring for.
Kirby invited Frare to take photos of his family saying their final goodbyes on the day he died. The image of Kirby, emaciated and embraced by his father while his sister and niece looked on, was later published in LIFE magazine.
Frare’s image won second prize in the 1991 World Press Photo General News category, leading to it being republished around the world.
The family later allowed the image to be colourised and used in an HIV awareness campaign by fashion brand United Colors of Benneton. They hoped the powerful image of their moment of grief would bring more attention to the reality of the AIDS epidemic.
he campaign was criticised by the Catholic Church, which argued the image was an inappropriate allusion to artistic depictions of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus after the crucifixion. The moment had not been staged, however — it was simply a raw, real moment captured on film.
The picture is credited with having a significant impact on changing attitudes toward HIV and showing the humanity of those affected by the disease.
